The Austrian National Focal Point Libraires (ANFP): Opinion on the second working paper
The libraries sector's position in the commission's second working paper concering the fifth framework programme: scientific and technological objectives (german version: Brussels, 12/02/1997, COM(97) 47).
Referring to the above mentioned issue, and considering all that has been said in the European commission's previously published documents concerning the fifth framework programme and the creation of an information society in Europe, as well as with reference to our own position paper which was given to the European commission GD XIII/E-4 for the fifth framework programme, "Emphasis on Libraries, Museums and Archives", dating 17 October 1996, the ANFP - after careful analysis of the second working paper of the fifth framework programme from 12 February 1997 (COM(97) 47) and its underlying sources - is forced to formulate the following resolutions:
- An information society is - semantically speaking, and according to the European Commission's statements on this topic - a societal form in which the gaining, saving, processing, distribution and use of knowledge is allowed to take place, in strictest compliance with the criterion "People first", and by means of the most modern information and communication technology. This is true in all areas of individual and social forms of dealing with and living life. The long term goal is as follows: to ease and raise the quality of work and life (in the EC document, called for short: "Prosperity") in the information society.
- The realisation of such a highly ambitious societal transformation requires - in order to live up to each respective function - highly qualified centralised information and distribution centres, that is, a highly developed digital library infra-structure. This is literally a conditio sine qua non for the actualisation of a European, and consequently a global information society. This infra-structure embodies the indispensable, essential instrument and structural element of this society.
- As the means chiefly responsible for the general information flow in itself, and for the quality of the recording, saving, acquiring and provision of knowledge, within the respective societal organisms, the libraries of the future serve the rights of all citizens to free, universal information access.
- Their respective role is, as already mentioned above, included in the definition of the information society. They can be considered playing a role in the following policies:
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