Posted on 02/18/2005 2:54:40 PM PST by MRMEAN
PARIS (Reuters) - France's national library has raised a "warcry" over plans by Google to put books from some of the world's great libraries on the Internet and wants to ensure the project does not lead a domination of American ideas.
Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library and is a noted historian, says Google's choice of works is likely to favour Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language.
He wants the European Union to balance this with its own programme and its own Internet search engines.
"It is not a question of despising Anglo-Saxon views ... It is just that in the simple act of making a choice, you impose a certain view of things," Jeanneney told Reuters in a telephone interview on Friday.
"I favour a multi-polar view of the world in the 21st century," he said. "I don't want the French Revolution retold just by books chosen by the United States. The picture presented may not be less good or less bad, but it will not be ours."
Jeanneney says he is not anti-American, and that he wants better relations between Europe and the United States. But like French President Jacques Chirac, he says he wants a multi-polar world in which U.S. views are not the only ones that are heard.
His views are making waves among intellectuals in France, where many people are wary of the impact of American ways and ideas on the French language and culture.
But he says he has heard nothing from politicians in Paris or Brussels, days before U.S. President George Bush visits the European Union's headquarters and NATO.
"On the eve of George Bush's arrival in Europe, the president of the National Library of France is sounding a warcry ... he is seeking a French and European crusade," Le Figaro newspaper said on Friday.
California-based Google Inc. said last December it would scan millions of books and periodicals into its popular search engine over the next few years.
Its partners in the project are Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library.
Google says the project will promote knowledge by making it more easily and more widely accessible. It aims to make money by attracting people to its Web site and to its advertisements.
The impact this might have on attendance at world libraries is not yet clear. But Jeanneney expressed his concerns in an article published by Le Monde newspaper late last month.
"Here we find a risk of crushing domination by America in defining the idea that future generations have of the world," he wrote, urging the EU to act fast.
He pushed his campaign forward this week by announcing the national library would make editions of 22 French periodicals and newspapers dating back to the 19th century available on the Internet.
FYI-
France also Bans Fox News
The pathetic whimpering of a once great nation bankrupt of any modern ideas worth indexing and unable to do it themselves.
"Here we find a risk of crushing domination by America in defining the idea that future generations have of the world,"
Very good. Your language is irrelevant and will be replaced by Arabic in your country and English in the rest of the world.
Oh yeah, we don't want to leave out those wonderful Jean Genet novels.
Sorry, Mr. Frenchy-Frenchman. You're lipping off at the country that made the internet. You don't like what goes on it, go suck some parfaits.
LOLOLOL
"His views are making waves among intellectuals in France, where many people are wary of the impact of American ways and ideas on the French language and culture."
Not nearly as destructive to the French language and culture as is the self-destructive decadence that infects contemporary France like a plague--to the grief and dismay of us Francophiles.
Fair enough. So why not get in there and compete? Afraid that this would require putting the French to w-o-r-k? If this proves too much of a burden, they could always outsource the job.
I've read Camus, Sartre, Proust, Voltaire, Ionesco, etc., and learned much from them.
Oh, I read them in English.
Saint Genet knew how to google if anyone did.
Why does this require a "warcry" from this pompous twit. If he wants to put French classics on the net in french lanquage, then do it. Why go out of the way to attack Google for what they are doing; when Google hasn't even done anything yet. Plus with all the money Google pours in the dem coffers, I think you can bet the frogs point of view will be well represented
The French don't have to worry. With all of the Democrats at Google, they'll index a bunch of pap in english that no one will read anyhow.
Sorry that you are now irrelevant Jean but that is the way it goes.
I hope you enjoy your new quarters on the ash heap of history
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