Brussels, 25/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 25 June at the parliamentary Culture and Education Committee, Marie-Hélène Descamps MEP presented her draft report, “i2010: Towards a European Digital Library”. The initiative is aimed at “guaranteeing access for all to the European cultural heritage and to ensure its preservation for generations to come” through a digital cultural library, with a single and multilingual access point. The digital project is initially expected to focus on free, non-copyright texts. The draft report is therefore calling on European libraries to make books already in their possession available in digital formatting. The report encourages cooperation between member states and the exchange of good practice, as well as the “choice and use of common standards…in order to ensure inter-operability of content”. It is subsequently urging member states to put together, in collaboration with cultural institutions, “digital plans at national and regional levels”. The project is aware of the impossibility of European funding and the insufficiency of national public funds, and therefore plans to develop private partnerships aimed at providing copyright documents to the public. When there is an agreement with those controlling copyright, the future library will be able to make extracts of protected books available. (gc)