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Deutsch: Europäische Kommission fördert Digitalisierung des Kulturerbes

An EC Recommendation issued on 28 October 2011 is urging Member States to intensify their efforts and involve the private sector to help in digitising cultural material in order to improve the exposure and stocks of Europe's digital library Europeana.

The Recommendation, which updates a 2006 version, has taken into consideration the Member States' progress reports from 2008 and 2010 and assigns a precise target, establishing a minimum content contribution for each state so as to reach 30 million objects introduced in Europeana by 2015, as compared to the 19 million available today. Among the items included, the recommendation has in view Europe's masterpieces no longer protected by copyright and all material digitised with public funding.

Adopting measures to support cultural and creative industries and ensuring a sustainable model to finance Europeana are among the goals of the Digital Agenda for Europe.

The Recommendation invites Member States to set up solid investment plans and create partnerships with private entities to share digitisation costs and provides key principles for fair and balanced partnerships. It also recommends getting more out-of-commerce material online, by "creating the legal framework conditions enabling large-scale digitisation and cross-border accessibility of out-of-commerce works."

States should reinforce their strategies and adapt their legislation in order to provide for a long-term preservation of the digital material. One method could be to eliminate the technical protection measures that impede the librarians to preserve the works.

Private partners are needed as, according to the Commission's estimation, the cost for the digitisation of the collections of Europe's museums, archives and libraries, is about 100 billion Euro.

Private investments have already been done for digitisation. In 2010, Google Inc. worked with Belgium Ghent University to scan out-of-copyright books, resulting in 100 000 volumes available now on Europeana. The project was part of Google Books, through which, over one million public-domain books were made available online.

The British Film Institute (BFI) is also calling for donations to raise 2 million pounds in order to restore and preserve nine early silent films by director Alfred Hitchcock.

On digitisation, there is "extreme urgency (given) the current shifts in technology. Some European countries have stopped distributing film prints, which has had a very rapid effect with the imminent disappearance of suppliers and skills relating to film," said Brian Robinson, communications manager, Archive and Heritage at the BFI.

The commission is also in the process of overhauling copyright rules, including "orphan works" (cases where the creator or rights holder cannot be found).

Digital Agenda: encouraging digitisation of EU culture to help boost growth (28.10.2011)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1292&...

EU Calls for Digitization of Cultural Heritage (28.10.2011)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203554104577003590312279...

Europeana: Commission sets precise targets to states (28.10.2011)
http://www.europolitics.info/social/europeana-commission-sets-precise-...