Wed 23 May 2012 | 
France dominates Europe's digital library
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Enlarge textFrance has never been shy about promoting its culture, so few were surprised when it took a close interest in a new digital library intended to showcase Europe's history, literature, arts and science.
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But when the new site, called Europeana, recently opened more than half of its two million items come from just one of the 27 countries in the European Union - oui, France. So comprehensive is France's cultural dominance over this cyberspace outpost that other countries are having their own history written for them - in French, of course. Europeana combines the digital resources of museums and libraries, and the information provided includes paintings, maps, videos and newspapers. Material is free of copyright so it can be downloaded for blogs, research or schoolwork by anyone with an internet connection. Of course, the minute it went online it was completely swamped with requests and crashed within hours. Designers were expecting a maximum of five million hits an hour but were slammed by twice the volume of traffic. They're aiming to upgrade capacity by mid-December. Vive le computer!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/business/worldbusiness/20digital.html
http://www.europeana.eu/
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New New Media looks at how our mediascape is exploding to bits. How the latest technology and the internet are changing the way we live, work and play. How the latest media is shaping us all.
Stefano Boscutti is an executive creative director and strategist. He's like a better looking version of Todd Sampson. He also has an abiding faith that stories and wordplay (and not powerpoint presentations) will change the world.
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