There's a very nice new report available from the wonderfully named " Comité  des Sages" (High Level Reflection Group on Bringing Europe's Cultural Heritage Online) titled "The New Renaissance". The report can be downloaded here:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/reflection_group/final-report-cdS3.pdf

and there's a press release at

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/17&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLang

The report deals with a wide range of funding and policy issues involved in digitizing cultural heritage materials and sustaining access to these materials.  It makes some strong proposals about conditions that should be attached to public funding for digitization and for public-private partnerships, as well as for priorities in dealing with problems in the intellectual property system. Some of this material has rich connections with the work that the Association of Research LIbraries Special Colllections Task Force has been doing over the past year.

Clifford Lynch

Director, CNI