European Commission steps up efforts to put Europe’s memory on the Web via a "European Digital Library”

The European Commission’s plan to promote digital access to Europe’s heritage is rapidly taking shape. At least six million books, documents and other cultural works will be made available to anyone with a Web connection through the European Digital Library over the next five years. In order to boost European digitisation efforts, the Commission will co-fund the creation of a Europe-wide network of digitisation centres. The Commission will also address, in a series of policy documents, the issue of the appropriate framework for intellectual property rights protection in the context of digital libraries.

“Information technologies can enable you to tap into Europe’s collective memory with a click of your mouse”, Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding explained. “The European Commission will help to turn this into reality by co-funding centres of competence for digitisation and providing a truly European framework for protecting, accessing and using intellectual property rights in digital libraries. Member States will have to do their bit by providing the basic means for digitisation”. “This is a very exciting prospect for Europe’s libraries and we are eager to make this happen”, added Dr Elisabeth Niggemann, Director General of ‘Die Deutsche Bibliothek’ (the German national library) and chair of CENL, the Conference of European National Librarians.

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/253