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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.'"
http://gallica.bnf.fr/
I speak french and read the editorial. The guy basically says that if the french governement doesnt invest more cash digitizing old books, english literature will totaly dominate the future of the net, even in the francosphere. He doesnt biatch about google at all.
True, they have been general dicks when it comes to supporting America. They helped us out during the American revolution, and we helped them out during WWII, so I guess its somewhat even. It just disappoints me that all those snooty French hate Americans so much....
From my experience, they don't. They even wonder why we Americans think that the French hate us. They were really confused by the freedom-fries debacle. OTOH, the Parisians are different, and more difficult, but that's not just towards Americans.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
oh la la!
French scientists are not allowed to write publications in any language other than French
First, I worked for a French scientific institute last year (I am French), and I wrote some publications in English (proof here).
Moreover, I read an article 2 days ago saying that, in France, a lot of mathematical publications are writting in French and in the other scientific domains in English... No law here!
the french government decreed that the word e-mail is to be forbidden and replaced with made-up "courriel"
Wrong. French government has no power over the langage... It's the "Academie Française" which is supposed to tell how to spell words, and which words are French. The government wants its administration to speak French, and so wants it to use the word "courriel" which was declared French by the Academie Française - so it's logical. What would be your reaction if the American government doesn't want its administration to speak English?
I had to say that the Academie Française is sometimes not really well understood by a lot of French people (me included)...