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Europe
Google "library" sparks French warcry
2005-02-25
Link swiped from Fark, who was surprised France has a warcry.
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.
Fred always reminds us that the winners always get to write the history books.
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.
Complete with a shiny new Ministry and lots of pious Culture Vultures, no doubt. Perhaps they should hire the Quebecois for this role.
"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.
Fred also reminds us that when someone says, "it's not really about such-and-so, but about this other thing," then that someone is lying.
"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."
The winners always get to write the history books.
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.
Dude. Your politicians may have time for this sort of handwringing, but our president doesn't. He's rather busy just now.
"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.
Go them one better and declare a book jihad, Froggy.
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.
The winners always get to write the history books.
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.
That's an excellent start. Your next step should be to have some ideas worth archiving. The winners always get to write the history books.
One more comment. Most countries don't get it. Google is a private company, investing its own time and money into the project. This task was not ordered or supervised by the government. I imagine some of the funding is from the US taxpayer, but it would be part of a normal grant or appropriation request submitted by Google and approved by the relevant agencies.
Posted by:Seafarious

#36  Good point, Mitch. Josephus certainly was a loser. But a very effective suck-up, became his conqueror's pet Jew by predicting his ascension to the throne, if I recall correctly. And, as he boasted in his writings, terribly literate and well educated, and from the best families, too. Could have been a Columbia U. grad student, based on his attitude. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-02-25 11:49:43 PM  

#35  So true, Mitch. We all know Henry the VIII, but he was hardly a worthy subject....other than his scandals.
Posted by: 2b   2005-02-25 5:44:03 PM  

#34  Eh, worrying about the "legs" of a movie is a chump's game. Does it entertain you, or doesn't it? /I thought Amelie was a lot of fun. But then, I thought the same of Wasabi, so, y'know, I'm easy.

And for the five billionth time, the winners don't write history, historians write history. Thucydides's Athens lost the Peloponnesian War . Josephus? A loser sucking up to the Romans. The Secret Histories of Procopius are read far more often than any of the official Byzantine histories and chronicles. The modern American view of the American Civil War is heavily influenced by the "Lost Cause" blowhards of the Southern Historical Society. The Western understanding of the Eastern Front is almost entirely drawn from the accounts of captured Wehrmacht officers like Guderian, von Mellenthin and von Manstein. History is written by the literate, those in a position to write histories, and those who influence them.
Posted by: Mitch H.   2005-02-25 5:41:12 PM  

#33  Though in general I despise the French, I thank them for Sophie Marceau. ;)
Posted by: BH   2005-02-25 4:00:57 PM  

#32  Aris, being such a fan of the EU, I think you would really enjoy The Donner Party.
Posted by: 2b   2005-02-25 3:33:07 PM  

#31  Aris

I have to confess you I never liked "Citizen Kane" but I needed a movie liked by what we, French, call constipated intellectuals and these intellectuals say it is one of the 10 geatest movies ever, well overrated IMHO but the goal was to give an example proving that America could produce intellectual-friendly movies.
Posted by: JFM   2005-02-25 3:22:52 PM  

#30  Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library, as the head should respond by making his library books available to Google to scan too!

End of story and what a twit.
Posted by: 3dc   2005-02-25 2:37:44 PM  

#29  trailing wife> haven't seen Chocolat, but I will keep it in mind for next time I head to the DVD store -- thanks for the suggestion.

JFM> Now, "Citizen Cane" I find to be quite boring. I've seen it all, but never managed to do so in one go. :-)

And nah, I was just mentioning "Amelie" as a rather good and fun movie, didn't mean it to be an example of a masterpiece.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2005-02-25 2:35:56 PM  

#28  We are entering a strange new time in human history. Never before has a civilization attempted to gain power over another by whining and begging. Not sure I favor it over the old tried-and-true methods, but good luck with that.
Posted by: BH   2005-02-25 2:29:21 PM  

#27  One more comment. Most countries don't get it. Google is a private company, investing its own time and money into the project. This task was not ordered or supervised by the government. I imagine some of the funding is from the US taxpayer, but it would be part of a normal grant or appropriation request submitted by Google and approved by the relevant agencies.

As an aside, Bush was asked about the situation regarding the US media and criticism of him by a Russian reporter.....

Q (Through interpreter.) Alex Amishkov (ph), Interfax. To follow up on the issue of democratic institutions, President Bush recently stated that the press in Russia is not free. What is this lack of freedom all about? Your aides probably mentioned to you that our media, both electronic and our printed media, provide full coverage of the manifestations and protests in our country. Regional and national media often criticize the government institutions.

What about -- why don't you talk a lot about violation of the rights of journalists in the United States, about the fact that some journalists have been fired? Or do you prefer to discuss this in private with your American colleague?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't know what journalists you're referring to. Any of you all still have your jobs?

No, I -- look, I think it's important any viable democracy has got a free and active press. Obviously, if you're a member of the Russian press you feel like the press is free, and that's -- feel that way?

Q (Off mike.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, that's good. (Chuckles; laughter.) But I -- I talked to Vladimir about that, and he wanted to know about our press. Said a nice bunch of folks. And he wanted to know about, you know, as you mentioned, the subject of somebody getting fired. People do get fired in American press. They don't get fired by government, however, they get fired by their editors or they get fired by their producers or they get fired by the owners of a particular outlet or network. 1

But a free press is important, and it is an important part of any democracy. And if you're a member of the press corps and you feel comfortable with the press in Russia, I think that is a pretty interesting observation for those of us who don't live in Russia to listen to.

But no question, whether it be in America or anywhere else, the sign of a healthy and vibrant society is one in where there's an active press corps. Obviously, there has got to be constraints, I mean there's got to be truth; people have got to tell the truth. And if somebody violates the truth and those who own a particular newspaper or those who are in charge of a particular electronic station need to hold people to account.2 The press, the capacity of the press to hold people to account also depends on their willingness to self-examine at times when they're wrong. And that happens on occasion in America, and that's an important part of maintaining a proper relationship between government and press. I can assure you that the folks here are constantly trying to hold me to account for decisions I make and how I make decisions. I'm comfortable with that. It's part of the checks and balances of a democracy. And so I'm glad to hear your editorial comments, so to speak, on your comfort with the situation of the press corps in the Federation of Russia.

1 - But only after there is too much publicity to ignore.

2 - But the people fired will still sue. Collect your first unemployment check Marcia Mapes?

Posted by: BigEd   2005-02-25 1:53:14 PM  

#26  ugh. Several typos in that.

approximately

either final copies OR pre-publication copies ...

Posted by: Robin Burk   2005-02-25 1:31:10 PM  

#25  Google also has a Scholar site up that indexes scholarly articles in many journals.

Here's the rub: when the journal is a for-profit, or published by a few of the professional associations that require a fee for online access, then Google only shows the citation info. Scholars have to buy a subscription or occasionally can pay for just one such article.

I did a literature review on a technical topic last year that required access to 3 heavily-cited articles. I didn't have the leadtime to ask for them via my school's library so I personally paid to get copies from the European publisher -- at approxumately $35 per article.

This has been a huge issue for the last decade or so, but there is starting to be significant pressure about for-profit publishing of this magnitude. Universities cannot afford the large subscription costs to many of these journals.

Google's scholar site sometimes finds .pdfs here and there on the Web that are either final copies of pre-publication copies of the articles. These get read, but there's no guarantee it's the version that was cited in the rest of the scholarly literature. It's a mess out there right now!!

Now toss in free or inexpensive electronic access to all sorts of published books. These are a major threat to the publishers and they are scrambling to figure out a viable business plan in the age of easy broadband access to the Net.

BTW, when my technical books came out in the mid-late 90s, the publisher included the entire work in hyperlinked form on a CD. And yeah, some free copies ended up being posted online, but I did get royalties for e-copies from authorized sites as well.

The books are old now, but I suspect the trend has only accelerated.
Posted by: Robin Burk   2005-02-25 1:26:34 PM  

#24  "quirky, pretentious and boring" -- so very French.
Posted by: Tom   2005-02-25 1:08:06 PM  

#23  No doubt this labels me an incorrigible lowbrow, but I loved "Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot." It is less than the specified 60 years old, though.
Posted by: James   2005-02-25 1:03:57 PM  

#22  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.

That sucks, doesn't it? I was soooo wanting to read Foucault & Derrida...
Posted by: Raj   2005-02-25 12:53:44 PM  

#21  Aris, in my not so humble opinion Chocolat was quirky and nice. Amelie was quirky, pretentious and boring.
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-02-25 12:45:37 PM  

#20  Mr Crawford

Could you avoid that kind of BS when I bash the French?

You jhave to understand what Petain was in 1940. Picture Wahington, Grant, Sherman and Patton put together. In fact more than that; as the only WWI French general who tried to spare his soldiers lives many WWI veterans felt they owed him their survival. So we had the people who should have been callingn the youth to resistance, the guys who won medals at Verdun and similar places, who were calling for obeying "le Maréchal". And also keep firmly in mind the effect of Mers el Kebir (the attack with considerable losss of life of the French Fleet by the British, July 3, 1940)

And still, despite what some people say in this blog, a Jew in France had much better chances of surviving than in any other occupied country except Denmark
Posted by: JFM   2005-02-25 12:36:14 PM  

#19  They will be watching Grand Illusion.

And stop making me stick up for the frogs. While they are utterly without morals, they are not bereft of talent; though they're getting there too.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-02-25 12:35:37 PM  

#18  Aris plese, I wasn't speaking about not that bad mlovies, not even about quite good movies (and by the way the director of the "Trois Couleurs" trilogy is a Pole), I was speaking about movies who are still being eagerly watched sicty years about their creation and who will still being watched in 2100. Where are the French "Citizen Kane", "My Darling Clementine", "Casablanca" (the only time I had tears while listening the Marseillaise) or "Gone with the Wind". Do you really think there will be many people watching "Amelie" in 2100?
Posted by: JFM   2005-02-25 12:26:55 PM  

#17  JFM, I'd give them credit for Durkheim (but he died early on also, 1917, Curie, Camus and some really fast, but unprofitable, trains too. It is amazing that all the big names are really holdovers for the 19th century. Not surprisingly, the Great War was even worse to them than the English or the Germans.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-02-25 12:24:28 PM  

#16  no first rate movies

The Trois Colours movies were wonderful. French-Polish productions I believe.

And both Amelie and City of Lost Children were quirky and nice.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2005-02-25 12:06:17 PM  

#15  The French DID produce a lot of Nazi collaborators and an entire population that claimed to be in the Resistance.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2005-02-25 12:04:03 PM  

#14  Screw this guy. He is whinning because Google wants to put on the Internet and for free, a thousand times more culture and science than hwt he could put (and knowing the minds of French apparatchiks he wanted to make pay for it). He is the typical loser tyrying to preserve his power and money byt draping in "exception culturelle". The way to preserve a culture is by producing things of value and if we look at what France has produced in XXth century we find: a not that bad composer (Ravel), an inmense writer (Marcel Proust but he died in 1924) and... c'est tout. No pilosophy (Sartre was a joke: a guy who was wrong on everything), no first rate movies, no painters, no sculptors, no nothing.

IMHO the Google initiative owuld be a good thing for humankind and if that ruffles feathers between cultural apparatchitks envoyez leur se faire cuire un oeuf.
Posted by: JFM   2005-02-25 12:00:31 PM  

#13  Maybe he doesn't understand that those Anglo-Saxon English books will still be available on line to any Frenchman with a computer and a modem. Oh..and you can translate the English to French in a mouse click - so they can actually read them too.

He'll need to reroute the entire Internet, if he wants to continue to impose only his "certain view of things".
Posted by: 2b   2005-02-25 11:45:50 AM  

#12  Nope..."Je me rends."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-02-25 11:37:41 AM  

#11  "French warcry"....

You're kidding, right?
Posted by: Mark E.   2005-02-25 11:32:07 AM  

#10  Don't scan Dominique (who I am told is a man) De Villepin's books of poetry, just to piss em off
Posted by: Frank G   2005-02-25 10:49:11 AM  

#9  He wants the European Union to balance this with its own programme and its own Internet search engines.
will they call it Froogle?
Posted by: Gir   2005-02-25 10:47:18 AM  

#8  The French pissed? I see a strike on the horizon.
Posted by: tu3031   2005-02-25 10:31:45 AM  

#7  The French are just in one of their traditional snits because the lingua franca of Planet Earth has become English.
Posted by: SteveS   2005-02-25 9:28:37 AM  

#6  Jackal thats becuase the war against the Left (in the West) is in its early stages. You aint seen nothing yet.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-02-25 9:10:22 AM  

#5  I wonder if the winners really do write the history books. Most histories of the Cold War seem to have been written by people who sided with the losers.
Posted by: Jackal   2005-02-25 8:22:21 AM  

#4  Oh, come on! The frogs gave us Voltaire, and Ampere, and resistance. Where would the internet be without V=IR?
Posted by: Bobby   2005-02-25 8:21:29 AM  

#3  Anything they had to say has been translated to the new world language. The frogs are just worried that now the whole world will see that they lost and are now a third rate peasant culture. Tough. Frogistan's glory days are long gone and now it's just a glory hole.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-02-25 7:16:55 AM  

#2  Ze great French culture cannot survive a level playing field?
Posted by: gromgoru   2005-02-25 6:59:15 AM  

#1  My google searches often throw up pages in German, less commonly Spanish or Russian, but I can't recall the last time I saw a French webpage. I suspect the problem here is too few people saying too little of interest in French.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-02-25 3:05:59 AM  

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