The Bookseller.com

16th May 2008

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France launches Google books rival

12.03.08 Barbara Casassus

France is to launch its challenge to Google's book search next week. French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said today (12th March) that a pilot scheme for the Gallica 2 digitised book project would go live immediately after the Paris Book Fair, which opens on Friday (14th March) and runs for six days.

The project, to be unveiled at the fair, will offer more than 60,000 digitised works from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) and 2,000 from about 50 publishers, some of whom received subsidies for the purpose. The BNF plans to add another 40,000 books imminently, with those copyrighted books supplied by publishers expected to quickly exceed 10,000.

Authors welcomed the Gallica 2 project, according to Alain Absire, president of the 6,000-member French writers union (SGDL). Absire, however, has called for a charter to be drawn up to protect authors' intellectual property rights. "The project is between the BNF and publishers, whereas most (French) writers still own their digital copyright," he told The Bookseller. But "I prefer the BNF to Google," he added.

The scheme will offer publishers and e-tailers several possibilities, such as selling or renting out books, or giving access to only one or several chapters, Albanel said. It would "enable us to study the needs and behaviour of 'internautes', to test different models and to establish the contours of the new book economy," she added.

A working group headed by Bruno Patino, chairman of Télérama and director of Le Monde Interactif, is due to present a report to Albanel on the distribution of digital books over internet on 20th May.

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