Jacques Chirac has challenged the European library community to develop a similar Google project as the U.S. American Reseach Libraries' download of their bibliographic records into the Google search scheme.

Bon chance, mon ami!

What's that I see, Booklady?

Why, it's a white flag.

The concept of user friendliness based on the premise of convenience common to American, British and Canadian libraries has not been an item of concern to European continental research libraries.

To their credit, and in this they should be applauded, European reseach libraries have been at the forefront in digitization projects that bring to the world access to incunabula as well as material not found anywhere else. The British libraries particularly have been at the forefront of this movement. But user friendliness is a cost factor that they have not pursued, at least not at the research library level.

So, I will be interested to see if they take up Chirac's gauntlet! Perhaps they will call their version of Google, Gigi!