French Ministry of Culture and Communication said on July 11, 2005 that French government would set up a organizing and coordinating committee for "Europe Digital Library", which will be mainly responsible for the research on the possibility of the digitalization of French cultural property, and work together with its European counterparts in this regard.

The statement said that the top priority of the committee will be the thorough implementation of the establishment of a "Europe Digital Library" in terms of scientific research and industrial operation, and put forward a draft proposal for discussion with its European counterparts.

At the end of last year, Google, the global largest search engine, announced its intention of cooperation with libraries in several prestigious US and UK universities, publishing the electronic versions of their collections via Internet for readers. It is said that the largest cyber liberty will be completed by 2015.

At the beginning of this year French president Jacques Chirac proposed to build a digital library for and by Europe itself. Some libraries in Europe also called on dealing with Google's plan.

They are worried about the prospect of consolidated US opinion hegemony by the cyber library Google is building. In that case, their children will grow up in the environment dominated by American language, culture and thinking in the future. Therefore, an "European's counteract" is necessary so as to make the European wisdom, history as well as cultural and science heritage better understood by the world, and protect the cultural diversity.

By People's Daily Online