European digital library strategy announced

The European Commission is throwing its weight and its money behind digital libraries. Viviane Reding, the Information Society and Media Commissioner has announced a strategy for European co-ordinated digitisation and access of national collections.

Commissioner Reding has proposed that EU member states initiate national digitisation schemes to preserve and make their heritage available online. The first stage of her strategy is a set of actions which EU information professionals are asked to comment on before January 20, 2006. These comments will be fed into a set of digitisation recommendations.

"The internet is the most powerful new tool we have had for storing and sharing information since the Gutenberg press, so let's use it to make the material in Europe's libraries and archives accessible to all," Reding said. Adding that making Europe's cultural heritage available digitally will give Europe's "artists, entrepreneurs and innovators the raw material that they need. "

"Without a collective memory, we are nothing, and can achieve nothing. It defines our identity and we use it continuously for education, work and leisure, " she said of the cultural importance of digitisation.

The Information Society and Media Commission has outlined three areas of action which broadly cover digitisation, digital preservation and online accessibility. Although national libraries such as the British Library are involved in national digitisation programmes, the commission says these are fragmented and will lead to a set of online resources which are incompatible and duplicate each other.

By joining an EU led initiative Reding hopes to avoid compatibility issues and said that private finance will have to be involved to make a European d igital library a reality.

The commission has made Euro 36m available for research into digitisation and advanced access programmes.

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