Sally Chambers, Interoperability Manager,
The European Library
The European Library and Europeana: an
overview
VisionProvision of equal access to promote world-wideunderstanding of the richness and diversity ofEuropean learning and culture.
MissionThe European Library exists to open up theuniverse of knowledge, information and culture
ofall Europe's national libraries.
2005: Finland, France, Germany, Italy-Florence, Italy-Rome, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, UK
2006: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia
2007: Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Russia-Moscow, Spain, Sweden
2008: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia-St. Petersburg, Turkey, Ukraine
2009+: Montenegro, San Marino, Vatican City
10
23
33
45
48
www.theeuropeanlibrary.org
Service of all 48 European National libraries to provide access to their catalogues & digital
collections via one central, multi-lingual web-interface (“the portal”)
Alternate point of access Exposure to a wider
audience Platform for collaboration
Single point of access Search multiple libraries
and collections Multi-lingual interface
‘A digital library that is a single, direct and multilingual access point to the European cultural heritage.’European Parliament, 27 September 2007
‘A unique resource for Europe's distributed cultural heritage… ensuring a common access to Europe's libraries, archives and museums.’
Horst Forster, Director, Digital Content & Cognitive Systems
Information Society Directorate, European Commission
Europeana: the vision
Europeana: the timetable
Currently bringing in digitised content from
Europe’s cultural collections
Public prototype launching in November 2008
Over 2 million digitised objects
Content that represents all 4 domains
Pan-European coverage
Multilingual interface
Access to over 6 million objects by 2010
Europeana: the timetable
Funded by the Commission’s digital libraries initiative
under the eContentplus call
2-year thematic partnership network
100 partners representing: all EU Member States related Commission-funded projects the 4 cultural heritage domains:
audio-visual collections archives museums libraries
The Europeana network
www.europeana.eu
