On January 10, 2010, the European Commission released a report on Europeana, the E.U.’s digital library project, that made a number of recommendations designed to strengthen and grow the project with an eye towards creating a single public portal through which users could access Europe’s cultural heritage in a digital format.
Specifically, the report called for a more than 50% reduction in the duration of the exclusivity deals that Google signs with libraries, from 15 years to 7 years. Among other recommendations, the report states that members states must considerably increase funding for digitization in order to make the Europeana portal the “central reference point for Europe’s online cultural heritage, that rules for “orphan works” must be finalized quickly, and that “cultural institutions must have a window of opportunity to digitize material and make it available to the public” with renumeration for rights holders.
Read more: Open Book Alliance article EC Digitization Report: Stronger Rules for Google Books
Read more: New York Times article Brussels Wants 7-Year Limit on Works Digitized by Google
It's made several recommendations to strengthen and grow the project to create a public portal that allows users to access the European cultural heritage in digital format.
Posted by: גלי הלם | October 12, 2011 at 01:17 PM