Improving and extending the use of ICT to make the most of Europe’s cultural and audiovisual heritage

Here's the official line from the EU Commission on the 6 EU leaders call to digitise European culture in response to the Google initiative to digitise 5 major academic libraries.

"The European Commission today announced that it is to boost its policy of preserving and exploiting Europe's written and audiovisual heritage. At a time when the internet and the digital technologies available on many technical platforms are an everyday part of the life of European citizens, tapping the potential of our written text, image and sound archives is of major importance in economic terms as much as in cultural terms. The Commission plans to issue a communication by July outlining the stakes involved and identifying the obstacles to using written and audiovisual archives in the European Union. The communication will be accompanied by a proposal for a Recommendation aimed at enlisting all the public players concerned and facilitating public-private partnerships in the task of digitising our heritage."