In early January, the Ministry of Culture of France is proud to announce a new public-private partnership between the National Library of France and the ProQuest private property, the definition of how the company will digitize 70,000 books originally published between 1470 and 1700. The case has sparked outrage among proponents of free culture, which has denounced the privatization of public documents:

"While these public-private partnerships enable the digitization of these works also contain 10-year exclusive agreements that allow private companies that perform marketing for digitizing scanned documents. During this period, only a limited number of these works may be offered online by the BnF. "

None of the partners to the agreement bother to answer questions from journalists and defenders of cultural freedom, the only source of information was a press release from the Ministry of Culture to mention agreement between the officer Library (Biblioth?que Nationale de France, BNF) and ProQuest. The statement highlights the branches somewhat obscure "partnerships" that BnF-frames of the contract, and that this agreement is part of a broader initiative ". The first European books"

The issue here is not a commercial use of the material in the public domain, but the labyrinthine logic of the case. This logic suggests that public sector client (eg, research and educational institutions) will buy a number of jobs processed by other public institutions (eg, the National Library of France), and services are reimbursed money advanced by a private service. A painful situation of our cultural heritage entrusted to force the square peg in the round hole in cash.

What is clear, however, are the legal terms under which digital copies are handled. Clearly, the BNF has signed an agreement to sell access to digital copies of books in the public domain. This makes a mockery of his official duties: the BnF is supposed to allow access to these works, but in fact the access agreement ProQuest BnF blocks. Today (whacko) case, the library - ie the public body empowered to manage common property - not just what is normally the editing, sale, but also to monetize these works acting and

trader

who takes the job of editors. Major issues that it raises more exclusivity and ownership of the digital versions are very important. From what has been said so far, apparently involves the digitization of books: the result is an entirely new generation of property ProQuest, the provider of scanning services.


Even more strange? ProQuest agreements are also very different, and not so controversial. The agreement BnF, ProQuest is part of the "Early European Books" initiative. Besides French, four other national libraries are part of the sentence: the Royal Library (Denmark), the National Central Library of Florence (Italy), the National Library of the Netherlands, and the Wellcome Library, London (United Kingdom ). , ProQuest digitizes, at its own expense, the public library managed by the respective national associations. Then, free access to digital versions of these materials in the country. As ProQuest need money, sells access to its database to other countries (through subscriptions recruited by universities). According to the BNF-ProQuest agreement, however, there is free access to digital versions provided outside of the very limited version as described above.
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