Malta ‘Verbally Agrees’ to Books’ Digitisation Project

Last week, France reinstated the need for Europe, “to seize its place in the future geography of knowledge” in light of the current dominance of US enterprises in this sector. It is in fact working on its proposal to have a European Digital Library where European books would be made available online thus preserving and proliferating European knowledge.

This project was first proposed in May 2004 in a letter from Jacques Chirac to Commission President Jose’ Manuel Barroso and then Council President Jean-Claude Juncker. The letter was also signed from the Italian, Spanish, German, Polish and Hungarian leaders. It called for Europe to co-ordinate its efforts in order to preserve its heritage and make sure it is “made accessible online”.

The national libraries of nineteen member states announced their agreement to the proposed project in the form of a statement. Britain gave its implicit support while the Portuguese library is set to approve it. Where does Malta stand?

The Maltese National Library and the Cypriot National Library only verbally approved the statement.

This is a weak sign of the George Cross Island’s commitment towards the preservation of European cultural heritage including Malta’s own heritage. Given its size, Malta is adorned with a wonderful number of books and manuscripts describing the archipelago, its history and its people. If they are not put online they are not made accessible to everyone and are thus risking intellectual extinction.

There needs to be a co-ordinated and committed effort from the Maltese public and private sectors alike to preserve and promote our heritage – and also to make it accessible to scholars worldwide. We cannot afford any lag in the process of development as Google announces it will be improving its Google Print service.

We have already come a long way through in the provision of an efficient and effective e-Government service but we really need to keep up the momentum and move on to promote our knowledge heritage worldwide.

Will De Soldanis’ description of Gozo, or Megizer’s notes on Malta, or even Dun Karm’s romantic poetry ever be made available online ready for anyone to read and appreciate?

I really do hope so.