 |
|||||
 |
|
|
 |
Information Society > European Digital Library > e-inclusion > Media Literacy > Public Sector Information European Digital Libraries Cultural heritage The European Commission followed up the proposal launched in January 2005 by the then President of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Jean-Noël Jeanneney, and subsequently started the Digital Libraries Initiative. This initiative aims at making Europe's diverse cultural and scientific heritage (books, films, maps, photographs, music, etc.) easier and more interesting to use online for work, leisure and/or study. It must be stressed that the Commission had already financed some library digitisation projects ahead of this initiative. According to the Commission’s definition digital libraries “are organised collections of digital content made available to the public. They can consist of material that has been digitised, such as digital copies of books and other ‘physical’ material from libraries and archives. Alternatively, they can be based on information originally produced in digital format”. Latest developments: Adoption of the report of MEP Descamps by the plenary session of the European Parliament last September. Link to the European Commission website: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/index_en.htm Scientific publications The 2007 Communication on scientific publications is based on the ‘finding’ that there is an access deficit in Europe and that this can be best addressed with new digital technologies being better used to increase access to research publications and data as an important driver for innovation in our increasingly knowledge-based economy. The Commission is thus suggesting that : To improve current and future access to scientific information, the EU will support experiments with open access in its recently-launched research programme (by, for example, refunding the project costs of open access publishing). Latest developments: During 2007-2008 the Commission has also set aside some €50 million to support and help coordinate infrastructures for storing scientific data across Europe and €25 million for research on digital preservation, supporting in particular centres of competence in digital preservation. The eContentplus programme will devote €10 million to improving interoperability of and multilingual access to collections of scientific material. On access to science a parallel exercise is going on: a report on the European Research Area http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/index_en.html where the issue of access to scientific information is mentioned. The Rapporteur is an Italian Communist MEP Guidoni, FEP replied to the questionnaire on ERA to insist that the Commission should be extremely careful to seek that scientific publications remain sustainable. Link to the European Commission website: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/scientific/index_en.hm ACAP ACAP should enable the providers of all types of content published on the World Wide Web to communicate permissions information (relating to access and use of that content) in a form that can be automatically recognised and interpreted, so that business partners can systematically comply with the publishers' policies. In the first instance, ACAP will provide a framework that will allow any publisher, large or small, to express access and use policies in a language that search engines robot "spiders" can be taught to understand. FEP has been associated from the start with the ACAP project. At its Executive Committee meeting on 27 March 2007 in Paris, it has been agreed that FEP would become member of the ACAP project, allowing European publishers to be kept fully informed of the developments of what will become (hopefully) an industry standard, working with search engines and other technical and commercial partners. Latest developments: Final project conference will be held in New York on 29th November 2007 Website: www.the-acap.org  | |
|
Rue Montoyer 31 Bte 8 • B-1000 Brussels • Tel. +32/2/770.11.10 • Fax +32/2/771.20.71
|
|||||