February 24, 2005
"The battle is too unequal..."
A reader sends this article...
The head of the National Library of France says he worries that the vast digital library that Google is building in partnership with American and British institutions will quickly become a dominant force in scholarship -- and that it will have too much of an American tint to it....
...Mr. Jeanneney said action must come swiftly. If there is too much delay, he wrote, it will be too late. Once scholars start using Google's library, he said, it could become a bad habit that will be impossible to shake.
Mr. Jeanneney, in his essay, proposed a Europe-wide digital-library project. Europe alone, he argued, is equipped to take the reins of such an endeavor and establish itself as "a center of radiating culture and political influence without parallel on the planet."
The National Library of France has already placed 80,000 works and 70,000 images in its own digital library and will soon make available online reproductions of all major French journals since the 19th century. Those efforts, wrote Mr. Jeanneney, have earned the gratitude of online researchers and helped to spread France's influence around the world. But, he noted, "our annual spending amounts only to a thousandth of what Google has announced."
"The battle is too unequal," he said....
French documents should certainly be preserved in digital form. And perhaps some Frenchmen should be preserved too. Future scholars my have questions about French language or culture, and it would be nice to be able to thaw out an expert now and then to answer any queries...
Posted by John Weidner at February 24, 2005 11:41 AMOuch. That last paragraph was just plain mean. (I'm still grinning.)
Posted by: Kathy K at February 24, 2005 07:15 PM"But, he noted, "our annual spending amounts only to a thousandth of what Google has announced."
Now where have I heard that relative spending figure before? Oh right! The French military budget.
Posted by: Frank at February 24, 2005 07:22 PMSomeday this great civilization will be mentioned in the same breath with Athenian democracy, Imperial Rome...
Posted by: Andi at February 25, 2005 09:58 AMToo late! Gates just bought the Louvre and put it on Google.
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at February 25, 2005 10:29 AMDon't worry. The president-elect of the American Library Association is against it, too:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA502009?display=BackTalkNews&industry=BackTalk&industryid=3767&verticalid=151
How very French:
1) Complain about what someone else is doing.
2) Propose a grandiose (French) alternative.
3) Whine a lot, but refuse to spend any money on it.
The only thing they still need to do is appoint a commission.
What a pity that M. Jeanneney sees nothing in this great project but a threat from les Anglo-Saxons. You'd think a person dedicated to disseminating knowledge would think "Hey! Great idea. How can it be expanded to include the great continental collections, and beyond?" No thought about persuading Google to contribute its superior resources to a truly global collection? Oh no, can't be tainted by the "perverse effects of research for profit".
And note how he appears to be implicitly excluding Britain from Europe. (Oxford is not a great center of European culture?) Well, not that some Britons would mind. Hey, Jean-Noel, knock yourself out. What's stopping you?
Posted by: Moira Breen at February 26, 2005 02:42 PMAnother problem for Monsieur Jeanneney: the world is simply more interested in surfing America's cultural tide than in poking through the musty attic that is the glory of old France.
Posted by: lyle at February 27, 2005 03:32 AM
