” “The Bde "is an exciting prospect for the libraries of the continent and we can’t wait to see it completed": Elisabeth Niggemann, general manager of the Deutsche Bibliothek and president of the Conference of the directors of the European National Libraries, welcomes the cultural initiative that has been presented today by commissioner Viviane Reding. Along with the EU director for Information Society, Niggermann commented the results of the online poll about digital libraries of September 30th 2005. "The 225 replies we received state the authors of the survey came from libraries, archives and museums (46%), publishing houses and copyright holders (19%) as well as universities, experts and teachers (14%). Such replies were generally in favour of the Bde project, which is regarded as an opportunity to make the cultural heritage more accessible and usable on the Internet". The survey, conducted on behalf of the Executive Committee, "also shows different opinions copyright issues, in particular between the cultural institutions and the copyright holders". However, the polling results "have been useful for the Commission to better outline the actual structure of the Bde, which will offer a multilingual and highly visible access to the digital resources of the European cultural institutes".” “
