Bringing Europe's cultural heritage online - Public Hearing (Brussels, 28 October)

The Comité des Sages has launched a consultation process to feed its reflection and subsequent recommendations. The consultation covers key issues such as the sources of funding for digitisation, the exploitation models of content digitised with public funding and the conditions governing public-private partnerships for digitisation. The Comité is gathering the views of stakeholders and the general public through, amongst others, an online consultation and a public hearing. 1. Online consultation: At present a public consultation is ongoing with a number of closed questions. Deadline for submission is 30 September 2010. If you have not replied to it yet, please take 15 minutes to do so. Please forward this link to anyone you think could be interested in the consultation. 2. Public hearing: A public hearing will take place on 28 October 2010, from 10:00 to 16:30, in the Charlemagne building, Rue de la Loi 170, 1040 Brussels, Belgium. Practical arrangements Registrations for the hearing, either to speak or simply to attend, should reach the following address by 15 October 2010: INFSO-COMITE-SAGES@ec.europa.eu. Upon registration, and in order to facilitate the organisation, each applicant wishing to speak and to be interviewed by the Comité des Sages should indicate the topic(s) which he/she wishes to address. All applicants are invited to submit a position paper (max 2 pages) that will be analysed and taken into account by the Comité des Sages. Given time constraints, it is possible that not all applicants will be invited to speak and to reply to the questions of the Comité des Sages. In case of an oversubscription, a selection will be made by the Comité des Sages, giving priority to the applications most relevant to the fulfilment of the mandate of the group, while ensuring the highest possible representativity. Those who registered but are not invited as speaker due to time constraints, will of course have the possibility to assist to the hearing and to submit their contribution in writing. If you have further questions, you can contact Luca Martinelli (tel. +352- 4301 38101) or Yvo Volman (tel +352- 4301 38086) of the Commission's Directorate General for the Information Society and Media or Anna Athanasopoulou (+32- 2 - 29 97977) of the Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture.

For more information

• "Comité des Sages" on Bringing Europe's cultural heritage online

• i2010: Digital Libraries Initiative