Brussels, 06/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 5 May, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Europeana, the online digital library. The resolution says that Europeana “should become one of the main reference points for education and research purposes”. The text espouses the position taken by the European Commission which would like to see greater progress in digitising cultural works and goods, and pushes member states to follow the example of France which has provided 47% of Europeana's total number of digitised objects to date. MEPs would like Europeana to have 10 million digitised objects by June of this year and at least 15 million by 2015 (it currently has 7 million). Special attention should be paid to those works which are fragile and might very soon be lost to us and, among those, audiovisual materials. While encouraging public-private partnerships and national contributions, MEPs state that a substantial part of the costs will have to be borne by a separate budget line established in the next EU long-term budget, after 2013. Solutions must be found to allow Europeana to offer in-copyright works, particularly out-of-print and orphan works, by means of extended collective licensing or other collective management practices. Parliament endorses the Commission's intention to establish a simple and cost-efficient rights clearance system for the digitisation of published works and their availability on the internet. MEPs also call on the Commission to submit a legislative proposal on the digitisation, preservation and dissemination of orphan works which would put an end to the current legal uncertainty and to develop a database for these works. The resolution follows on from the Commission communication of August 2009, “Europeana, the next steps”. “We very much welcome the European Parliament's strong support for our drive to make Europe's rich and diverse cultural heritage available online,” said European Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. (I.L./transl.rt)