An ambitious project aiming at making Europe’s cultural and scientific resources accessible to all, a virtual European library with links to over 20 million digital objects. The database provides free access to millions digital items divided in four groups: Images (paintings, drawings, maps, photos and pictures of museum objects), Texts (books, newspapers, letters, diaries and archival papers), Sounds (music and spoken word from cylinders, tapes, discs and radio broadcasts), Videos (films, newsreels and TV broadcasts). Users can freely access any item and its details page (metadata), and also view the item in original context – but no downloading allowed. The project involves dozens of institutions encompassing all EU countries, as partners or contributors, and includes works from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the British Library in London, the Louvre in Paris along with a variety of hidden treasures form other sources. Under a professional outline and “universal” accessibility features, the interface is provided in 25 EU languages but most information is still in English. Along with a general keyword search box, more advanced search options and a timeline browsing are available. Registered users can save, share, tag items or searches, and the “communities pages” (will) enable to share, discuss, reuse or blog.
Leave a comment on Europeana review