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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