Thanks to Andy Carvin for posting on this very important and very digital
divide and in this case language divide related development.  Net-Gold has
a post with links to several news stories on this subject that may be of
interest to members of this discussion group.

From:  "David P. Dillard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:  Sat Mar 19, 2005  9:43 pm
Subject:  ELECTRONIC TEXT: RESOURCES : LIBRARIES: ELECTRONIC: DIGITIZATION
PROJECTS : VIRTUAL LIBRARIES: French Classics Enter Cyberspace : France
Fights Back Against 'Googlisation'
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/message/5205>

What is really interesting about this is that this development following
on the heels of the Google creation of their project as five libraries to
put fifteen million books online full text is coming at the same time that
there is discussion within the newspaper industry of charging for news
content online and the Yahoo sports coverage already includes fee based
article links.

From:  "David P. Dillard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:  Tue Mar 15, 2005  7:02 am
Subject:  NEWS : NEWSPAPERS : INTERNET: ACCESS: FREE : FREE VS. FEE: Can
Papers End the Free Ride Online?
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/message/5122>

If this happens and becomes widespread that newspapers become fee based,
look for a very rapid coming of age of weblogs as they move in to replace
newspapers as a free source of news and information about current events.
The Wikipedia already does extensive current events or news coverage.
To say the weblogs are liked by the membership and leaders of the Digital
Divide Network is sort of like saying that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
tend to be wet. <g>  It may be an important potential role of the digital
divide communities, not just this one, to lobby and counsel the media to
retain free content and even assist them in finding through advertising
and marketing electronic commerce ventures, the facility to viably
continue free web based content, as a key part of reducing and ending the
digital divide is access to quality and currently needed content and
information.

Providing free access to libraries would be of little good to anyone if
the books and magazines in the libraries had first been carefully removed
and only an empty building remained in its place.  Although with the
Google and Chrirac book initiatives and other already in place full text
book and periodical full text free online resources, the library is hardly
empty, thank goodness, but there is still a vital need for the citizens of
the world to have up to date knowledge of what is happening in the world
and of these many simply cannot afford to pay for this knowledge.


Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/net-gold>
<http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html>
<http://www.kovacs.com/medref-l/medref-l.html>
<http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/net-gold.html>
<http://www.LIFEofFlorida.org>
World Business Community Advisor
<http://www.WorldBusinessCommunity.org>

==================================================

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, Andy Carvin wrote:

>  From CIO-Today.com... -ac

> Chirac Plans French 'Counter-Offensive' on Internet Culture

> French President Jacques Chirac has vowed to launch a new
> "counter-offensive" against American cultural domination, enlisting the
> support of the British, German and Spanish governments in a multimillion
> euro bid to put the whole of European literature online. The president
> was reacting last week to news that the American search-engine provider

>   Google  is to offer access to some 15 million books and documents
> currently housed in five of the most prestigious libraries in the
> English-speaking world.

>   The realization that the "Anglo-Saxons" were on the verge of a major
> breakthrough toward the dream of a universal library seriously rattled
> the cultural establishment in Paris, raising again the fear that French
> language and ideas will one day be reduced to a quaint regional
> peculiarity. So on Wednesday Chirac met with Culture Minister Renaud
> Donnedieu de Vabres and National Library president Jean-Noel Jeanneney
> and asked them "to analyze the conditions under which the collections of
> the great libraries in France and Europe could be put more widely and
> more rapidly on the Internet."

<http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_title=
Chirac-Plans-French--Counter-Offensive--on-Internet-Culture&story_id=31513>

> or

> http://tinyurl.com/4c9ew

> -----------------------------------

> Andy Carvin
> Program Director
> EDC Center for Media & Community
> acarvin @ edc . org
> http://www.digitaldivide.net
> http://www.tsunami-info.org
> Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com

> -----------------------------------

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