[English] With adequate funding, libraries reach out to all Canadians, giving them the tools and services they need to be productive contributing members of society.

Q. whereas it is appropriate to use as a basis existing European initiatives which will contribute to the initial development of the European digital library, such as TEL (the European Library), which already provides access to documents held in European national library collections and in particular enables searches to be undertaken through the digital or bibliographical resources of 23 of the 47 national libraries, the TEL-ME-MOR project, which contributes to the integration of the 10 national libraries of the new Member States, the EDL project, which seeks to integrate 9 other national libraries in the framework of EU/EFTA, and Europ ...[+++]eana, which brings together the national libraries of France, Hungary and Portugal,

Some senators asked questions about the financing of the National Library.

BB. whereas the Telematics for Libraries programme which began in 1990 and has funded nearly 100 projects of various types has initiated many significant cooperation processes between Member States' libraries and at other levels between them and whereas the continuation of this process must be ensured in the 5th Programme of Research and Technological Development although it does not incorporate a separate libraries programme,

N. whereas more and more information is also needed by business as an element in its economic activity, and whereas small and medium-sized businesses in particular are increasingly making use of publicly funded library resources; whereas the research departments and information services of large businesses are likewise constantly exploiting large research libraries,

These documents were provided to the library’s finance team and the Parliamentary Librarian to support the PBO in accessing his planned budget of $2.8 million set aside in the fiscal framework for the library’s 2009-2010 estimates request.