European culture at the click of your finger

Next Wednesday -  The European Day of languages - MEPs in Strasbourg will debate a report by French MEP Marie-Hélène Descamps (EPP-ED) entitled "i2010: towards a European digital library". Ms Descamps believes that "the project symbolises Europe united in diversity (and) contributes to the enhancement and strengthening of an authentic European identity".

 

According to the report (which has been adopted by the Committee on Culture and Education), "the wealth and diversity of the European cultural heritage ought to be promoted, safeguarded and disseminated as widely as possible"

 

Although a handful of cultural assets are already digitised, will we soon be able to leaf through Dante's original manuscript of the Divine Comedy, zoom in on Leonardo's sketches and paintings of Flemish "Primitives", have a 3D overview of all Rodin’s sculptures? 

 

 

The report acknowledges changing cultural practices with the increasing use of digitisation of books for example. At the same time for many young people the internet has become nearly the sole source of knowledge and learning.

 

According to the report, digitalisation is not a "virtual alternative" to traditional cultural content, but rather production of "reliable, good-quality, parallel digital versions of such content". It goes on to say that only "a minute part of the European cultural heritage has so far been digitised" and initiatives for this are still rather fragmented. To meet this shortfall it calls for "coherent policies on digitisation" and says "preservation of digital works must be put in place to prevent the irrecoverable loss of cultural content". The report also calls for individual countries to speed up their digitisation process.

 

 

The report recommends setting up a European digital library: a single, direct and multilingual access point to the European cultural heritage, facilitating creation and research and combating the digital divide.

 

It would include universal and immediate access, 24/7 online access and a multilingual interface and content. It is also envisaged that it would be adaptable to the disabled due to its versatility. The project would be available to everyone and Ms Decamps said "the new technology offers great possibilities" for disabled people.

 

 

Some existing projects (The European library, TEL-ME-MOR, Europeana), could serve as a basis for the European digital library. It is envisaged that libraries could be called on to provide copyright-free digitalised content

 

MEPs hope that the digitisation will benefit other sectors, namely: education, science, research, tourism and the media. Moreover, it is desirable not to limit the digitisation to the EU but to include the cultural contribution of other European countries.

 

The Commission's "2010 Digital Libraries Initiative" came from the heads of State and Government of France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain in April 2005.