Commission staff working document accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on Europeana  next steps - Part I : questions for the public consultation - Part II : overview of the current content contribution to Europeana by country {COM(2009) 440 final}
Date: 2009-08-28
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU Member State, access to information, cultural heritage, cultural policy, cultural transmission, digital technology, digitisation

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 28.8.2009 
SEC(2009)) 1124 final 

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

accompanying the 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 

on Europeana - next steps 

Part I: Questions for the public consultation 
Part II: Overview of the current content contribution to Europeana by country 

{COM(2009) 440 final} 

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PART I 

The  present  document  complements  the  Commission  Communication  on  ‘Europeana  -  next 
steps’ with a series of questions for consultation. Interested parties are invited to submit their 
comments on all or some of the questions by 15 November 2009 to: 

European Commission,  
Directorate General for Information Society and Media 
Unit 'access to information', EUFO 2281 
Rue Alcide de Gasperi 
L-2920 Luxembourg 

or by e-mail to: INFSO DIGITAL-LIBRARIES@ec.europa.eu 

Contributions  will  be  published  on  the  digital  libraries  website  of  the  Commission,  unless 
requested otherwise by the organisation/person submitting them. 

The  questions  of  this  consultation  all  have  a  direct  impact  on  the  future  development  of 
Europeana.  Some  of  the  questions  -  in  particular  questions  7-10  -  also  have  more  general 
policy  implications  for  the  digitisation,  accessibility  and  use  of  content  from  cultural 
institutions.  The  replies  to  these  questions  will  feed  into  the  further  policy  development  in 
areas such as the re-use of public sector information and copyright related questions for the 
digitisation  and  online  accessibility  of  cultural  material.  In  the  latter  area  the  questions 
complement  the  work  undertaken  by  the  Commission  in  the  context  of  the  Green  Paper  on 
copyright in the knowledge economy and the follow-up Communication. Where relevant, the 
results  of  the  consultation  will  be  taken  up  and  further  discussed  in  stakeholder  groups  and 
working groups with Member States' representatives. 

Questions for consultation 

General 

Question 1 

Which orientations would you suggest for the future development of Europeana as a common 
access point to Europe's cultural heritage in the digital environment? 

Question 2 

Which features should be given priority in the further development of the site? 

Question 3 

Has Europeana struck the right balance between making Europe's digitised cultural heritage 
searchable  through  a  common  entry  point  and  at  the  same  time  giving  visibility  to  the 
institutions that contribute the material, or should the material accessible through Europeana 
be presented in a more unified way? 

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Question 4 

How should Europeana further develop its own autonomous identity? 

Question 5 

Should  there  be  minimum  requirements  for  the  content  brought  into  Europeana  by  the 
contributing  organisations  (e.g.  minimum  viewing  or  use  options)?  If  so,  who  should  be 
responsible for defining and imposing these minimum requirements? 

Content for European 

Question 6 

Which  categories  of  content  are  so  important  for  the  users  that  Member  States  and  their 
cultural institutions should be encouraged to make them available through Europeana? What 
measures can be taken to ensure the availability of these works through Europeana? 

Question 7 

What is the best way to encourage cultural institutions and rightholders to take into account 
cross-border access - including through Europeana - in their agreements on digitisation and 
dissemination of in-copyright material? Which legal or practical barriers to this cross-border 
access need to be addressed? 

Question 8 

How  can  the  difference  in  the  level  playing  field  for  digitising  and  making  accessible  older 
works between the US and Europe (in particular the 1923 cut-off date in the US, that places 
all  material  from  before  1923  in  the  public domain)  be  addressed  in  a  pragmatic  way  (e.g. 
better  databases  of  orphan  and  out-of-print  works,  a  cut-off  point  that  imposes  lower 
requirements for diligent search in relation to orphan works)? 

Question 9 

What  policies  should  be  adopted  to  avoid  that  the  process  of  digitisation  itself  creates  new 
types  of  sui  generis  copyright  that,  in  turn,  could  create  barriers  to  the  dissemination  of 
digitised public domain material? 

Question 10 

What  measures  can  be  taken  to  ensure  that  cultural  institutions  make  their  digitised  public 
domain  material  accessible  and  usable  in  the  widest  possible  way  on  the  Internet?  Should 
there be minimum requirements for the way in which digitised public domain content is made 
available through Europeana? 

Financing and governance 

Question 11 

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Which financing model would reflect a fair distribution between Community funding, Member 
States' funding and private funding, taking into account that the aim of Europeana is to give 
the  widest  possible  access  to  Europe's  cultural  heritage  at  pan-European  level?  Could 
Europeana be financed solely by national cultural institutions or by private funding? 

Question 12 

Is  sustained  European  Union  funding  for  the  basic  operations  of  Europeana  necessary  and 
justified for the period after 2013? What type of European funding instrument could best be 
used? 

Question 13 

Which governance structure for Europeana would best fit the preferred financing model (as 
indicated  under  question  11)?  Should  there  be  a  role  in  the  governance  structure  for 
organisations other than content providers? 

Question 14 

How can private involvement in Europeana best take shape (e.g. through sponsoring, through 
technological partnerships, through links from Europeana to the sites of publishers and other 
rightholders  where  the  user  can  buy  in-copyright  content,  or  through  another  type  of 
partnership)? 

Question 15 

How  can  private  sponsorship  of  Europeana  best  be  stimulated?  Are  commercial 
communications  on  the  Europeana  site  acceptable,  and,  if  so,  what  type  of  commercial 
communications (e.g. logos of sponsors, promotion of specific products)? 

Question 16 

Should there be a contribution (financial or other) in exchange for the links from Europeana 
to sites with content for which the user has to pay? Can a model such as that of Gallica 2, 
providing  links  from  the  site  of  the  Bibliothèque  Nationale  de  France  to  the  content  on  the 
sites of French publishers, be transposed to Europeana? 

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PART II 

Overview  of  the  contribution  of  Member  States  to  Europeana  in  %  of  the  total  number  of 
objects (situation end July 2009). 

EU countries 

France 

Germany 

Netherlands 

United Kingdom 

Sweden 

Finland 

Greece 

Italy 

Belgium 

Slovenia 

Spain 

Estonia 

Luxembourg 

Poland 

Romania 

Austria 

Portugal 

Hungary 

Latvia 

Cyprus 

Bulgaria 

Czech Republic 

47% 

15.4% 

8% 

7.9% 

5.2% 

4% 

1.6% 

1.2% 

1.1% 

0.7% 

0.6% 

0.4% 

0.4% 

0.3% 

0.3% 

0.2% 

0.2% 

0.1% 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

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Denmark 

Ireland 

Lithuania 

Malta 

Slovakia 

Non EU countries 

Norway 

Switzerland 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

<0.1% 

4.3% 

0.4% 

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