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The Digital Agenda for Europe seeks to optimise the benefits of information technologies for economic growth, job creation and the quality of life of European citizens, as part of the Europe 2020 strategy. The digitisation and preservation of Europe’s cultural memory which includes print (books, journals and newspapers), photographs, museum objects, archival documents, sound and audiovisual material, monuments and archaeological sites (hereinafter ‘cultural material’) is one of the key areas tackled by the Digital Agenda.

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The EU’s strategy for digitisation and preservation builds on the work done over the last few years in the digital libraries initiative. The European actions in this area, including the development of Europeana, Europe’s digital library archive and museum, were supported by the European Parliament and the Council, most recently in a Parliament resolution of 5 May 2010 and the Council Conclusions of 10 May 2010. The Workplan for Culture 2011-14, established by the Council at its meeting of 18 and 19 November 2010, highlights the need for a coordinated effort in the area of digitisation.

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On 28 August 2006, the Commission issued a Recommendation to the Member States with a view to optimising, by means of the Internet, the economic and cultural potential of Europe’s cultural heritage. The Member States’ reports on the implementation of the Recommendation of 2008 and 2010 show that progress has been made. However, progress is not consistent across the Member States and is uneven for the different points of the Recommendation.

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Moreover the context for digitisation efforts and for collaboration at European level has changed considerably over the last few years. New elements include the launch of Europeana in November 2008, the publication of the report ‘The New Renaissance’ by the ‘Comité des Sages on bringing Europe’s cultural heritage online’ of 10 January 2011 and the Commission’s proposal for an Orphan Works Directive of 24 May 2011.

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Therefore, an updated set of measures for digitising and bringing cultural heritage online and for digital preservation should be recommended to the Member States. In that context, the development of digitised material from libraries, archives and museums should be further encouraged in order to ensure that Europe maintains its place as a leading international player in the field of culture and creative content and uses its wealth of cultural material in the best possible way. As underlined by the ‘Comité des Sages on bringing Europe’s cultural heritage online’, Europe needs to act now to reap the benefits of digitisation and digital preservation. If Member States do not step up their investments in this area, there is a risk that the cultural and economic benefits of the digital shift will materialise in other continents and not in Europe.

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The online accessibility of cultural material will make it possible for citizens throughout Europe to access and use it for leisure, studies or work. It will give Europe’s diverse and multilingual heritage a clear profile on the Internet, and the digitisation of their assets will help Europe’s cultural institutions to continue carrying out their mission of giving access to and preserving our heritage in the digital environment.

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Moreover, the digitised material can be reused – for both commercial and non-commercial purposes – for uses such as developing learning and educational content, documentaries, tourism applications, games, animations and design tools, provided that this is done with full respect for copyright and related rights. This will give an important input to the creative industries, which account for 3,3 % of EU GDP and 3 % of employment. These industries are faced with a digital transition that is shaking up traditional models, transforming value chains and calling for new business models. Digitising and providing wider access to cultural resources offers enormous economic opportunities and is an essential condition for the further development of Europe’s cultural and creative capacities and of its industrial presence in this field.

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Digitisation is an important means for ensuring greater access to and use of cultural material. Concerted action by the Member States to digitise their cultural heritage would lend greater coherence to the selection of material and would avoid overlap in digitisation. It would also lead to a more secure climate for companies investing in digitisation technologies. Overviews of current and planned digitisation activities and quantitative targets for digitisation would contribute to achieving those objectives.

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The cost of digitising the whole of Europe’s cultural heritage is high and cannot be covered by public funding alone. Private sector sponsoring of digitisation or partnerships between the public and private sectors can involve private entities in digitisation efforts and should be further encouraged. In order to be fair and balanced, these partnerships should comply with a number of key principles. In particular it is necessary to set time limits for the preferential use of the digitised material. The ‘Comité des Sages on bringing Europe’s cultural heritage online’ indicated that the maximum time for preferential use of the material digitised in public-private partnerships should not be longer than 7 years.

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The EU Structural Funds can be and are being used to co-fund digitisation activities as part of projects having an impact on the regional economy. However, such use could be more widespread and systematic. Mass digitisation processes can gain in efficiency due to scale. Therefore, the efficient use of digitisation capacity and, where possible, the sharing of digitisation equipment between cultural institutions and countries should be encouraged.

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Only part of the material held by libraries, archives and museums is in the public domain, in the sense that it is not or is no longer covered by intellectual property rights, while the rest is protected by intellectual property rights. Since intellectual property rights are a key tool to stimulate creativity, Europe’s cultural material should be digitised, made available and preserved in full respect of copyright and related rights.

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On 24 May 2011 the Commission made a proposal for a Directive for orphan works. In order to have its full effect it should be rapidly adopted and implemented to ensure a harmonised approach to the issue of orphan works throughout the EU. For the large-scale digitisation of out-of-commerce works, legislative backing for licensing solutions voluntarily developed by stakeholders may be needed in the Member States, taking into account the need to ensure a cross-border effect. In this context, the approach followed in the stakeholders’ dialogue, sponsored by the Commission, on out-of-commerce books and learned journals, which resulted in a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Brussels on 20 September 2011, should be seen as a model for further dialogues to facilitate agreements for the digitisation of as much of the out-of-commerce material as possible. Rights information databases connected at European level can bring down transaction costs for rights clearance. Such mechanisms should therefore be encouraged in close cooperation with all stakeholders.

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In order to allow wide access to and use of public domain content, it is necessary to ensure that public domain content remains in the public domain once digitised. The use of intrusive watermarks or other visual protection measures on copies of public domain material as a sign of ownership or provenance should be avoided.

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Europeana, Europe’s digital library, archive and museum, was launched on 20 November 2008. The further development of the Europeana platform will depend to a large extent on the way the Member States and their cultural institutions feed it with content, and make it visible to citizens. Measures to achieve this effect should be encouraged.

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Currently, Europeana gives direct access to more than 19 million digitised objects. Only 2 % of these objects are sound or audiovisual material. Increasing the content accessible through Europeana, including types of material that are currently underrepresented, will make the site more interesting for the users, and should therefore be encouraged. The overall target of 30 million objects by 2015 is in line with Europeana’s strategic plan, and a stepping stone for getting Europe’s entire cultural heritage digitised by 2025. The availability of all public domain masterpieces (key cultural or historical works and objects, as determined and selected by the Member States) through Europeana will enrich the content of the site, in line with the expectations of the users. Provisions in the Member States ensuring that all material digitised with public funding is made available through Europeana would boost the development of the platform and create a clear framework for the content contribution by cultural institutions, and the introduction of such provisions should therefore be encouraged.

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Digital material has to be managed and maintained, otherwise files may be unreadable when the hardware and software used to store them becomes obsolete, material may be lost when storage devices deteriorate over time, and storage devices could be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new and changing content. In spite of progress made across the EU on the preservation of digital material, in several Member States no clear and comprehensive policies are in place on the preservation of digital content. The absence of such policies poses a threat to the survival of digitised material and may also result in the loss of material produced in digital format (born digital material). The development of effective means of digital preservation has far-reaching implications that go beyond cultural institutions. Questions of digital preservation are relevant for any private or public organisation, which is obliged or which wishes to preserve digital material.

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Digital preservation poses challenges of a financial, organisational, and technical nature and sometimes requires an update of legislative provisions. Several Member States have introduced or are considering legal obligations requiring producers of digital material to make one or more copies of their material available to a mandated deposit body. Efficient provisions and practices for legal deposit can minimise the administrative burden on content holders and deposit institutions alike, and should therefore be recommended. Effective collaboration between Member States is necessary to avoid a wide variation in the rules governing the deposit of digital material and should be encouraged. Web-harvesting is a new technique for collecting material from the Internet for preservation purposes. It involves mandated institutions actively collecting material instead of waiting for it to be deposited, thus minimising the administrative burden on producers of digital material, and national legislation should therefore make provision for it.

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In as far as cinematographic works are concerned the present Recommendation complements the Parliament and Council Recommendation of 16 November 2005 on film heritage and the competitiveness of related industrial activities (1) on a number of aspects,