Digital libraries: Europeana to become a reference point for European culture online

The new report written for the European Commission has called on member states to take more responsibility for the digitization of Europe’s cultural heritage to avoid a “digital Dark Age”.

German national library head has called for a much greater focus on the EU's online library Europeana and the fostering of competitors to Google. The report said that Europe cannot afford to be inactive and wait, or leave it to one or more private players to digitise its common cultural heritage. Google's exclusivity agreements on the material it has digitised from the EU's libraries need to be brought down from the current 15 years to just seven years, the report said.

All of Europe's public domain masterpieces should be available on Europeana by 2016, with the aim of making the site become the reference point for European culture online, the report's writers recommend. Additionally, EU member states should also make public funding for digitisation projects conditional on free accessibility of the digitised material through Europeana, they say.