Brussels, 10/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 10 May, the EU Council of Ministers adopted conclusions describing the next stages to follow for developing the European digital library system, Europeana. Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for the digital agenda, welcomed the interest created by the initiative among delegations and their support for the Commission's initiatives. The commissioner indicated that Europeana would be one of the key elements in the digital agenda, which the Commission was expected to adopt soon. She asserted that it was necessary to invest so that the material was accessible and available for all and warned that “if we do not act, development will be done elsewhere, outside Europe. We must be in the avant-garde”. She was delighted with the consensus reached between the Council and the Commission with regard to the solutions agreed for meeting current challenges in the area of copyright and funding.
Kroes underlined that Europeana is an excellent initiative, which allows for online access under a single portal for a plethora of cultural goods from the whole of Europe, in addition to the conclusions adopted by the Council, affirming that it is necessary that Europeana continues to improve its site, particularly with regard to research functions and ensuring that a fully functioning multilingual service continues. Given that the target set is to have 10 million digitalised books online by the end of 2010, the Council believes that it is indispensable to increase available funds as soon as possible and encourage all member states to participate in this initiative, in an effort to ensure a more balanced geographical distribution (Ed: France alone has contributed more than half of all funding). Greater importance should also be placed on the digitalising of audio work, whose conservation is very fragile and for which digitalisation would be an exceptional way of conserving this kind of work and providing comprehensive access. The Council is delighted that a “committee of wise men” has been created by the Commission, after putting forward the proposal during the most recent Education, Youth and Culture Council on 27 November, on the initiative of France. This committee has been given the specific role of examining public and private partnerships for implementing and encouraging the development of Europeana. Member states are calling on the committee of wise men to set to work as soon as possible and arrange broad-based consultations for deciding what contributions will be made to it by member states and stakeholders and for the committee to regularly provide information about the progress accomplished in this connection. The Council is aware that a permanent and balanced replenishing of Europeana will create increasingly sharp problems with regard to respect for intellectual ownership of the work, whose ownership is difficult to define or obsolete, in addition to the fact that copyright is different from one member state to another. It is therefore requested that rapid progress be made in an effort to prevent these problems putting a brake on the development of Europeana. The Commission is currently drawing up a proposal to harmonise intellectual copyright and therefore facilitate the digitalisation process of these specific publications. Until mid-2011, Europeana will be co-financed by the Commission and several member states (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania and Hungary). Finally, the Council is calling on the Commission to present a proposal for sustainably financing Europeana in the long-term, as well as a conceptual framework to make Europeana an essential digital reference tool.
In a backdrop to these discussions, Italy has announced that it has concluded a non-exclusive agreement with Google Books on the digitalisation of listed publications in some of its biggest national libraries (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma). This process involves up to a million books covered by the public sector (which are not subject to copyright). Google will assume the digitalisation operation and the costs and the digitalised funds will be used to replenish the Europeana database. Italy was pleased to announce that Google will be able to use and freely distribute Italian books that it has scanned and will subsequently contribute to promoting Italian culture. This is the first time that such an agreement has been concluded between Google Books and the Ministry of Culture from a member state.
Commissioner Kroes and Commissioner Vassiliou also had an informal discussion during dinner on the theme of digitalisation of films. They unanimously agreed that it was necessary to protect small cinemas, which often show works of art and prototypes of great cultural value. These kinds of cinema do not, in effect, have the resources to fully equip themselves with the means to digitalise films and are therefore at risk of gradually disappearing to the advantage of the major cinema complexes, which often show the public at large American productions. Androulla Vassiliou explained that “we all share the same analysis of the problems and we all agree in saying that coordinated action is necessary if we want to preserve cultural diversity in this sector”. (I.L/transl.fl.)