Germany...forced speech. Bloggers comply or face fines!

I have heard of free speech, but forced speech?

The startling news astounded when it first streaked like lightning around German websites in recent days.

The public library system was going to force every blogger and website to submit material for their digital library files or face a potential fine of $12,700 (U.S. Funds).

Turns out, the "thought police" were not in an arm-twisting mode, at all.

Not yet, anyway.

In a bid to document "pop culture" on the world-wide-web in a digital format for future reference, officials have been painstakingly selecting specific material from a handful of websites that are presumably representative of "voices" on the net.

To ensure the project is completed without a hitch, the Government took the unusual precaution of legislating applicable penalties that may be levied against any blogger or net surfer inclined to object to use of material.

It appears that the Government may be taking a nod from Europeana - the new European Union digital library - which has been actively digitalizing 2m books, recordings, and paintings and films for their files.

The archives may be helpful to researchers in the future who may want to take a reliable peek into cultures from earlier ages - no matter how advanced or primitive - and at break-neck speed.


When the Europeana digital library went live last month, the site promptly crashed.

No wonder.

They're boasting a staggering 10 million hits a month from around the globe.

The beauty of the digital library is its permanency.

Currently, the information highway offers up no guarantees.

Internet pages shut down, for instance, as bloggers close-out their accounts and start fresh elsewhere.

Because technology will leap ahead, too - documentation of the "dark ages" in the "wild" on the Internet - may be of interest too.

So, there is an ongoing effort to coral that data.

A U.S. based archive is currently involved in an ambitious effort to collect data on these shores, but the task is monumental.

And, there is the question of storage space.

So - have libraries prioritized data collection at this point in time - or are scholars going about the project willy-nilly?

Where do a blogger's daily ramblings rank in the scheme of things, for instance.

"We don't have any predefined criteria," noted Rory McLeod, the British Library's digital preservation manager.

"The library captures large slices of the web, but what is important to retain is the Internet's changing technological specifications so that future researchers can reconstruct them."

My vision for the future?

A holograph library!