Digitization in Europe – excellent overview
By Paul Biba
Information Today has a first class overview of the state of Europeana and the digitization process in Europe. It covers digitization, orphan works and copyright, public domain, and more.
It’s not just more works that must be added. More equal participation from all member libraries is required, and original-language content must be increased. As of July, France is still the biggest contributor to Europeana, providing 47% of the content, though that is down from the 52% share it had on launch. Germany is next with 15%; the Netherlands and the U.K. each have contributed 8%; Sweden, Finland, and Norway (which is not even an EU member) hover at 4%-5%; and others trail far behind with 1% or less.
A more noticeable problem for many users-and an embarrassing one since Europeana prides itself on offering interfaces in the native language of all its members-is that many national treasures are not there in the original language. If you do a search on Da Vinci, for example, you will find 460 objects in French but only 140 in Italian. Shakespeare is represented with 606 items in French and only 317 in English. The Spanish writer Cervantes has 176 objects in French and just 43 in Spanish. And you might think that the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen was really German, with 387 items provided in German and only one in Danish!
Thanks to Shelf Awareness for the link
September 11th, 2009 at 11:39 am
This probably has to do with the varying stress European countries place on their culture and thus their funding for digitization. France and Germany value it highly, the English and the smaller countries of Europe less so. And oddly, the country with perhaps the best claim as a creator of culture, Italy, seems remarkably relaxed about it. Perhaps they’re too occupied with sipping wine and enjoying long lunches.