Bernhard Eversberg schrieb:
> In Berlin, Merkel's cabinet approved a plan for the establishment of
> a German Digital Library (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, DDB). There
> appears to be no English statement yet, so let me try to relate the
> main points here from the official promulgation of yesterday:
> (see http://tinyurl.com/cjmnxm for the German text)
>
> "Much of our cultural heritage as well as countless scholarly
> publications are accessible only for small audiences. This is to
> be changed fundamentally [!]: Both cultural heritage and scientific
> information in Germany and in Europe will have to be digitized and made
> available to everybody over the Internet.
OK so far.
> For the German part, a German Digital Library will be established.
We don't need a German Digital Library. There is already a Global
Digital Library, so "GDL" is already taken as a trademark, sorry (ok,
the German version uses DDB as label): "the net". We just need to put
these cultural heritage things on the Web in a usable way, not into a
centralized German national portal. That's hard enough, as we see in our
daily work.
There are sentences like "[...] digitalisiertes Kulturgut [...] zentral
über das Internet zur Verfügung zu stellen" (my translation: provide
central access to digitized cultural heritage over the Internet) and
"Aufbau und Betrieb eines zentralen nationalen Zugangsportals" (my
translation: development and operation of a central, national access
portal) in the formal agreement that make me wonder whether they finally
understood the decentralized nature of the Internet. The Internet works
so well (eg as a digital library) because of its decentralized structure.
That "German Digital Library" approach sounds like the next big
libraryland silo to me... Haven't we finally learned those don't work?
> Contrary to GBS practice, DDB will ask rightsholders first before
> scanning their works, said cabinet minister Neumann. A noble intention
> indeed.
I see hundreds of pages specifying abstract rights management
requirements with fancy features (moving walls, special agreements,
geographic restrictions, ..., automatic checks how long a creator is
dead, ...) no one will ever be able to implement...
> As far as Google News reaches, there seems to be no news about it
> in the forein press, whereas all German media carry the report and
> commentators seem to be unanimously pleased with the idea of a
> competition against Google.
Note how the term "Google" is used twice in that sentence :-). You won't
compete with Google by government order (why compete with them at all?).
Simply contribute to that global digital library by providing good,
usable services and people will happily use them...
Till
--
Till Kinstler
Verbundzentrale des Gemeinsamen Bibliotheksverbundes (VZG)
Platz der Göttinger Sieben 1, D 37073 Göttingen
kinstler@gbv.de, +49 (0) 551 39-13431, http://www.gbv.de
Received on Thu Dec 03 2009 - 08:22:26 EST