Orphans, AIDS-Infected Children Form Romania’s Image On Europe’s Digital Library

The website Europeana.eu includes ten photographs taken from the website www.scran.ac.uk.,which show up among the first results of the search of “Romania” and illustrate children in orphanages or suffering from AIDS in 1990 in Romania.

Countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria or Turkey are represented in terms of first search results by objects of their national patrimony in digital format, such as historic documents, archeology objects and works of art. 

The Institute for Cultural Memory (CIMEC) is the national institution designated by the Culture Ministry to manage the projects to include Romania’s patrimony in the European digital library and to create the country’s digital library.

Head of the Institute for Cultural Memory, Dan Mihai Matei, told MEDIAFAX he was aware of the photos as first results of the search of the term “Romania” on the website Europeana.eu.

Matei added he had asked for explanations from the Office in The Hague, in charge of managing the project of the digital library of the European Commission.

According to him, the team in The Hague was unable to offer any explanations.

“My opinion is that the photos appear in the order they have been introduced in the database. (…) It’s not a conspiracy to make Romania look bad,” Matei said.

Matei said he drew the attention of the coordinators in The Hague that the images sent by the institute ought to be the first to appear as search results.

The Romanian team sent some 3,200 items in digital format to be included on Europeana.eu, whose prototype was launched on November 20.

Matei said he will discuss this problem in Monday’s meeting attended by all European countries included in the project, and he will file a complaint in Brussels if the issue is not resolved.

The search of the term “Eminescu” on Europeana.eu generates four documents, of which three are in Hungarian, and one document written in Hungarian for the term “Caragiale”. There are no search results in the Romanian language for the terms “Brancusi” or “Ionesco”, as no document referring to them was sent from Romania.

Matei said the despite technical problems Europeana.eu experiences for the time being, the digital library is “probably the most important cultural project of the European Commission”, and “we should make the most of it”.

“(…) On the long term, it will be an important resource. Instead of searching on Google and finding whatever comes in your way, one can search on Europeana.eu, where there is a higher degree of authority,” Matei said.

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