<nettime> Culturenet Sweden faces sudden shutdown

[Karl-Erik Tallmo <ketallmo@nisus.se>]

The Swedish Culturenet is to be shut down by the government - on 
rather strange grounds. People are protesting. The petition mentioned 
in the below text (http://www.fsk.net/kulturnateng.html) was when I 
last checked signed by 921 people - in just a few days. Now, also 
international friends of the Culturenet may sign ...

TIA!!

/Karl-Erik Tallmo


>
>Culturenet Sweden (http://www.kultur.nu) - a large web site giving 
>the Swedish people access to all kinds of culture - is now being 
>shut down by the government after nine years of existence.
>
>Through the years Culturenet Sweden has built a large systematically 
>organized catalogue of links to all sorts of Swedish culture; 
>artists, musicians, writers, actors, theater groups, dancers, 
>libraries, archives, museums, galleries, book stores, antiquarian 
>book sellers, governmental agencies concerned with cultural matters, 
>organizations, research, education etc. Right now, in the Fall of 
>2004, the link catalogue contains approx. 8 000 links.
>
>The information in the link catalogue is highly refined and 
>systematized. This service is augmented by a mailinglist hosting 
>service, a notice board where anybody may advertise their cultural 
>events or achievements, a unique press release service, the services 
>"Ask a librarian", and "What happens?", the latter an online 
>calendar, listing current events, and finally an online cultural 
>magazine.
>
>Culturenet Sweden is unique in its scope - since it includes 
>official institutions as well as individual artists, commercial and 
>non-commercial endeavors.
>
>Culturenet Sweden is a cultural community, attracting several 
>thousand unique visitors every day. This highly appreciated service 
>is now to be shut down, according to the latest finance bill.
>
>The reason for this is - according to the bill - that there is today 
>"a large amount of entrepreneurs who provide Internet based search 
>engines for the public. This means that a government funded endeavor 
>in this area no longer can be motivated."
>
>This, however, is not true. There is no search engine for 
>specifically Swedish cultural matters on the web. And Culturenet 
>Sweden is much more than a search engine. Culturenet Sweden provides 
>highly refined information ABOUT but foremost BY cultural Sweden 
>itself, regardless of which ministry a certain item belongs to, 
>regardless of if it is public or private, commercial or 
>non-commercial.
>
>There is an online petition about this for English speaking 
>international friends of the Culturenet:
>
>see http://www.fsk.net/kulturnateng.html
>
>More reading:
>"Culturenet Sweden faces sudden shutdown"
>http://home5.swipnet.se/%7Ew-56585/article.html
>
>
>
-- 
__________________________________________________________________

   KARL-ERIK TALLMO, Swedish writer, artist and journalist.
   Contributor to Nordic dailies and magazines for the last 25
   years. Tallmo has written three books. He has participated as
   an expert in governmental investigations on new media and been
   a member of advisory boards, e.g. at the Royal Library, the
   Swedish IT Commission, and the Swedish Research Council.
   ARCHIVE: http://www.nisus.se/archive/artiklar.html
   MAGAZINE: http://art-bin.com
  __________________________________________________________________


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