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France National Library Attacks Google Book Effort
An anonymous reader writes "The National Library of France is not happy with Google's effort to scan and integrate millions of books into its Web search. Jean-Noel Jeanneney, President of the library, wrote in an editorial that he is concerned Google's initiative to digitalize volumes at five leading libraries will reflect a unipolar worldview dominated by the English language and American culture. Jeanneney is pushing for European libraries to follow in Google's footsteps. Google said it was surprised by Jeanneney's remarks and noted, 'This is a first step for us; we can't do everything at once.'"
You mean an english speaking company with english speaking employees is starting off with english literature?!
"It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one." - Voltaire
"Google said it was surprised"
Nooo, it can talk, and it's got emotions... Run away!
My <1000 UID is with a hot chick
I think the editorial would have been much more powerful and effective if it was written and presented in a language that people actually read. /ducks
No English translation of the editorial?
l33t 15 73h 0n1Y 14n9u493 7h47 m4773r5!
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
If they were still small, they could do something like kill French language support for one day, replacing the franco page with a fake offer to "Upgrade your language" to either English, German or Chinese.
Given Google's efforts in other languages, it seems strange to me that they'd not continue their project in other languages.
As far as Google's efforts in other languages go, on behalf of the Klingon community, I would like to comment that I find Google's trivial attempt to court persons of Klingon extraction patronising and ultimately meaningless, in light of their apparent indifference to the immediate necessity for action with respect to the digitisation of the Klingon language corpus.
It is evident that Google favours and priveleges English language works over works of Klingon origin, and such bias will not go unnoted.
Well, to start off with, the name google is just too "English." Perhaps google should rename their service "Le Goog" in France...
I think it may be because most searches for "Paris" are for the Hilton variety, rather then the city.
Oh, they're just still miffed about that whole "french military victories" thing. ;-)
(Yes - I know how it works.)
How about this: since the editorial is in French, I think it's only fitting to post the Google translation of the editorial
I think they're still bitter about the English long bow thing.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Ahem. Posts such as this are required by law to be first in French, then in English.
hawk
That meant *how* many weeks avoiding british food?
hawk
Looks very interesting, BUT EVERYTHING IS IN FRENCH! How the hell am I supposed to read it?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Professor: And this is my Universal Translator. Unfortunately, it only translates into an incomprehensible dead language.
Cubert: Hello.
Translator: Bonjour.
Professor: Crazy gibberish!
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)