Does Google Threaten French Culture?

-- Library Journal, 03/11/2005

France’s National Librarian expressed alarm over Google’s recently announced plan to digitize books from five prominent university libraries, saying that the plan will favor Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language. In an article in Le Monde, historian Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France’s national library, said the Google venture constituted “a risk of crushing domination by America in defining the idea that future generations have of the world.” He urged that the European Union act to create a European search engine alternative and announced that he would speed up the National Library’s plans to make backfiles of French periodicals and newspapers available online.