Google Library vs. Europeana – an update

02 Nov 2006 | News
In my August 16 blog, I discussed the European challenge to Google Library project. I was sceptical about the chances of its success. Recent declarations of the French National Library director, Jean-Noel Jeanneney, the main promoter of the project, only reinforce my scepticism. According to Mr. Jeanneney, the project will be most probably called Europeana, to reflect its Greek-Latin lineage.
By Charles Goldfinger
In my August 16 blog, I discussed the European challenge to Google Library project. I was sceptical about the chances of its success. Recent declarations of the French National Library director, Jean-Noel Jeanneney, the main promoter of the project,  only reinforce my scepticism. According to Mr. Jeanneney, the project will be most probably called Europeana, to reflect its Greek-Latin lineage.

Mr Jeanneney expects that Europeana may contain about 2 million digitized books in three to four years. This compares to 25 to 30 million promised by Google. And the target of Europeana is admittedly ambitious, as France (read National Library) has yet to reach an annual rate of 100,000 books and there are 10 participants in the project, most of them considerably smaller than France.

To differentiate himself from Google, Mr. Jeanneney wants to sign agreements with all concerned publishers and hopes to define a master agreement before the end of the year.  

It looks like I am not the only sceptic in Europe. Earlier this month, the Universidad Computense Madrid in Spain, which boasts the second largest library in Spain, announced that it was abandoning its own digitization project and joining Google Library. It is unlikely to be the last European university doing so.

The whole Europeana project would be laughable as just another example of culture wars, periodically launched by the French establishment against the Anglo-Saxon philistines, if it was not for its public financing, both from national budgets and the European Union.

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