Brussels, 22/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced on Wednesday 21 April that the European Commission would entrust three personalities - Maurice Lévy (Chief Exective of Publicis), Elisabeth Niggemann (Head of the German National Library) and Jacques De Decker (writer) - to provide recommendations on how best to speed up the digitisation, online accessibility and preservation of cultural works across Europe. The Reflection Group will examine the various ongoing initiatives involving both public and private partners (notably the Google Books project) and copyright issues to find ways to boost the digitisation efforts of the complete collections held by libraries, museums and archives in Europe. Their recommendations will ultimately help Europeana, Europe's digital library, reach a new dimension: today the Europeana portal (http://www.europeana.eu ) already offers access to over 7 million digitised books, maps, photographs, film clips, paintings and musical extracts, but this is only a small part of all the works held by Europe's cultural institutions. The establishment of a Reflection Group is part of the Commission's broader strategy to help the cultural sector make the transition towards the digital age. The Group will submit its conclusions before the end of the year.
The Reflection Group (“Comité des sages”) has been asked to provide a set of recommendations for the digitisation, online accessibility and preservation of Europe's cultural heritage. It will look at: - how to fund digitisation, including the possibilities and conditions for public-private partnerships; - copyright issues and licensing practices to facilitate the digitisation of copyrighted material - in particular out-of-print works and the so-called orphan works, which represent a large part of Europe's collections.
The current digitisation challenges go beyond the need to put cultural heritage online. There is a need, in a second phase, to address the broader question of digital (i.e. online) distribution and accessibility of all cultural content in Europe. Setting up the Reflection Group is part of a broader strategy that will also include the search for new and effective business models as well as a favourable environment for creative industries and a fair remuneration for creators. (L.C./transl.rt)