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For decades, the French Establishment has fought a lopsided crusade to preserve its cultural and linguistic heritage. With the rise of the Net, Francophones saw their worst fears realized: a global business and communications network where the primary language, at least for now, is English. But the French government is fighting back. On Jan. 24, the National Library of France became the largest single library available online.
In one click of the mouse, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF) added 35,000 books -- in French, of course -- and 35,000 images to its new Gallica 2000 Web site, making France the instant leader in the race to digitize library collections. While other major libraries are also moving to the Internet, the BNF is the only national library so far to put entire books online. The British and German national libraries offer only samples of texts on the Net, while other public libraries such as the U.S. Library of Congress and the National Australia Library primarily post images and documents. French officials, flush with their coup, predict it will take other libraries around five years to catch up.
The project to put France's national heritage online hasn't come cheap. The BNF has spent $10 million over the past three years to digitize 86,000 books and 240,000 images, and will require another $10 million over the next two years. But it isn't short on funds. In fact, today's free-spending Net entrepreneurs could learn a lesson or two from the BNF, which earned a profit of $1.45 million in 1999 from fees paid by users who download articles from Gallica 2000. Currently free of charge for private use, Gallica 2000 charges $34 per page for material that's used in a CD-ROM, publication, or some other professional capacity.
UTOPIAN SCHEME.
So far, more than 1,000 Web pages have a link to the site, including all the major search engines such as Yahoo! and AltaVista. The BNF site averaged 10,000 visits a day in 1999, and library officials expect traffic to increase at least fivefold this year with the addition of Gallica.
Visitors to the digital library can access material on a range of subjects such as theology, history, literature, and philosophy. Some of the books and images date from the Middle Ages. Renowned authors such as Balzac, Proust, and Sartre are obviously popular favorites, but primary documents on the construction of the Eiffel Tower are also frequently requested.
The library's Web site is currently available only in French, but in a nod to the lingua franca of the Net, an English version will be in place by yearend. Still, the site is easily navigated by non-French speakers, and a collaboration with the New York Public Library should help make the BNF site even more accessible to English speakers. The BNF is working on an exhibition on "Utopia" with the New York Public Library, which will take place in April in Paris and July in New York. Both libraries plan to digitize the exhibits and link to each other's sites, so that visitors can access material in both English and French.
PAY-PER-VIEW LIT.
Gallica 2000 is the first step in the BNF's ambitious plans to organize itself for the Net era. Catherine Lupovici, director of the digital library, says the BNF is trying to adopt a more businesslike approach. "We are currently trying to evaluate what's been done so far, and we aim to develop a business plan for mid-2000," she says.
Talks are under way with the government and with publishers to enable the library to put the rest of its 11 million books online. While none of the items now online is protected by copyright, the BNF want to initiate a pay-per-view system for copyrighted books. Until now, the French government has opposed this development, arguing that access to books in the National Library should be free, even on the Net. But BNF officials believe they can prevail, and they plan to put 50,000 copyright-protected books online in March, 2001. Such a move could boost the French National Library's profits dramatically.
More important, it would make other libraries take notice. If the French library can successfully get around Europe's stringent copyright laws and make money from putting copyright-protected books online, major libraries around the world will realize that they're sitting on a potential goldmine. But it will still take a while for them to catch up with the French.
By Anna Bawden in Paris EDITED BY PAUL JUDGE
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