Friends: What the Europeans are attempting to do is a good thing. After all, long before USA came into being, Europe was the cradle of Western Civilization. If all the great literary works of the West were to be available free on the Net, it will be good for the entire world.
I would like Mr Chirac and the leaders of other European countries to go one step further and make all the published (refereed) research papers available free online. All they need to do is to adopt the Berlin Declaration (as amended at the recent Southampton meeting) for all higher education and research institutions in their countries. The UK was very close to doing it, but some people at DTI came in the way. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] > Here's the latest regarding France's challenge against Google's decision > to digitize content from US and UK libraries, from Rober MacMillan's > Washington Post column. He's the one who broke the story a couple of > months back.... -andy > > Google Unites Europe > > France's decision to create an online repository of European literature > got critical backing from five other European nations this week when the > heads of Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain joined French > President Jacques Chirac in asking for support from the European Union. > > European media reported that a letter signed by the leaders asks EU > President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Commission President Jose > Manuel Barroso to coordinate the effort and, more importantly, cut a > check to fund it. The letter comes after the national libraries of 19 > European nations agreed to support the plan as well.... > > What France -- and soon Europe -- is doing is a good thing. To > successfully digitize and place online the collected libraries of > Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Greece, > Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, > the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden is no small feat. > (Latvia, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus and the UK are still on the fence.) But > it is a public works project with the highest goal in mind -- promoting > knowledge around the world. We can only benefit by bringing so much > invaluable literature online. That's why it is so strange that the > European project was sparked by fear, a misplaced fear at that.... > > <snip> > > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042900432.html > > -- > ----------------------------------- > 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 > ----------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
