France’s national library has been forced to deny rumours that it has sold out to Google over digitization, and thus ended protracted resistance to perceived cultural imperialism.
“Following a news item published Tuesday 18 August in La Tribune, the [Bibliothèque Nationale de France] wishes to clarify that it has not signed an agreement with Google for the digitization of its collection,” says the library.
However, it adds that, “The Library has never ruled out a private partnership that would be consistent with the strategy of the Ministry of Culture regarding digital content.”
The BNF has been seen as “spearheading resistance” to Google’s digitisation of books and it championed an alternative European digital library that might be more suitable to non-English speaking countries.
[La Tribune] claimed yesterday that the BNF had capitulated to the American search engine. ...
A library spokesperson told the Times the library has not abandoned its own digitization project, but would use Google to do the work faster and cheaper than it would be able to do itself. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 8/19/2009 07:25:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
