Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-26-Speech-3-386"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070926.23.3-386"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Mrs Descamps and the other members of the Committee on Culture and Education for having produced this report, because it is a very important one indeed.
I am also naturally thinking of other problems that need to be resolved, namely those relating to copyright – which is a real headache – and to scientific information. Our high-level group is currently working on solutions to these issues.
Mr President, what we have here is an extraordinary project that shows what European value added really is, and I believe that the greatest thing is to unite Europeans around their cultures plural, around their respective histories plural, which are things of beauty and which have been developed through creativity. This really is the best of what we have. Let us preserve it and let us work together so that we can share it.
You see, Europe’s true wealth is to be found not in the euro or in our economic development: it is in our heritage, a heritage that across the centuries has been created and built up; that is what constitutes the real and profound source of Europe’s riches.
Now in a certain sense the scandal is that this heritage is disappearing into archives and vaults, into places where the public, the citizens of Europe, cannot go, where they cannot touch it, where they cannot understand it, where they cannot enjoy it. The precise aim of the digital library is to break down these barriers.
I believe that this is one of the great advances that Europe has made and I would like to pay homage to the national libraries, to our national libraries, because they were there at the launch of this initiative, which has been so valid and so important for European cultures. The directors of these libraries have been true pioneers. They understood that symbiosis was involved, the symbiosis between culture, which is richness of the corpus, and technology, which is an instrument that provides access to this culture, and the fact that they undertook this pioneering work essentially means that in 2008 we now have the single multilingual access point.
And yes, yes, yes I say to those who brought up the point, it will even give us access to the literature of Luxembourg. I am proud of this because Luxembourgish is my mother tongue and therefore for me it is the most important language in the world, just as every mother tongue is important. This is precisely why the works of art and literature that have been created in all these languages, and the special manner in which these are expressed, are what we need to be able to access.
Take the culture of Luxembourg: of course the people of Luxembourg have access to it, but do you in this House know that there is a such a thing as the culture of Luxembourg? No! However, once we have the digital library the common access point will enable you to understand that there really is one.
It is extraordinary that we can have access to these cultures, that we can share this wealth all around us, including – and I would emphasise the fact – outside Europe, because culture does not stop at our borders. Culture means sharing and therefore it is in a spirit of openness that we wish to create this library, for interoperability will be a very important aspect, and this will apply not just to the books but also to all the other forms of culture: films, music, museum collections and so on. We are therefore witnessing an extraordinary cultural opening-up that is both multilingual and multicultural, something that will truly show the very essence of Europe itself, which is this unified diversity.
Of course there are problems to resolve and the honourable Members have been quite clear on this. There is the problem of financing, for one. I would therefore appeal to the Member States to ensure that the discussions are followed by effective action. Some have already done so and I would like to thank them for this.
In 2008 we shall be presenting an analysis of what has been achieved and also, therefore, of what has not been achieved. I believe that this will be very important for moving the whole venture forward. Of course we are also going to recommend the private-public partnership, because that will be essential for the progress of digitisation, which is a very expensive business. I am also thinking about the preservation of fragile material that can be destroyed if it is not taken care of. How many reels of film are allowed to go to dust? If we are to preserve this common cultural heritage then we simply have to digitise it before it is too late."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples