Former president of Bibliothèque nationale de France warns against the Internet

The Sankei Shimbun, September 17, 2009

Dr. Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the former President of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the author of “Quand Google défie l'Europe: Plaidoyer pour un sursaut,” who was involved in the establishment of the European digital library, gave a lecture on the subject of “Internet et la culture” at the National Diet Library (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) on September 15.

He pointed out three menaces arising out of the Internet: pursuit of profits, circulation of wrong information, and paralysis of the intellect caused by the flood of unsystematic information. About the digitization of books by Google, he again stressed the importance of the library as a guide to information.