European Library

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The European Library
European Library logo.PNG
European Library screenshot.PNG
Type of site
Portal to the content of Europe's national and research libraries
HeadquartersDutch Royal Library, Netherlands"
OwnerCENL (a consortium of 49 national libraries) [1]
URL The European Library at Europeana
CommercialNo
Launched17 March 2005

The European Library is an Internet service that allows access to the resources of 49 European national libraries [2] and an increasing number of research libraries. Searching is free and delivers metadata records as well as digital objects, mostly free of charge. The objects come from institutions located in countries which are members of the Council of Europe and range from catalogue records to full-text books, magazines, journals and audio recordings. Over 200 million records are searchable, including 24 million pages of full-text content and more than 7 million digital objects. Thirty five different languages are represented among the searchable objects.

Contents

The content of the European Library was frozen on 31 December 2016, with no new updates after that date. [3]

History and concept

The European Library of today has evolved from a number of earlier projects.

Its starting point was in 1997 when the GABRIEL (Gateway and Bridge to Europe's National Libraries) project set out to establish a joint web portal of European national libraries. At a basic level, the portal provided information about each library's collections and access to their online public access catalogues (OPACs).

The European Library exists to open up the universe of knowledge, information and cultures of all Europe's national libraries.

European Library Mission [4]

GABRIEL was followed by the TEL (The European Library) project, which ran from 2001 to 2004 and created a framework for access to key national and deposit collections within Europe. The project was part-funded under the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission. The national libraries involved in the TEL project were those of Finland, Germany, Italy (Florence), Italy (Rome), Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland and United Kingdom. [5]

This led to the launch of TheEuropeanLibrary.org portal on 17 March 2005.

Between 2005 and 2007, the TEL-ME-MOR project helped to incorporate 10 more national libraries from new European Union member states as full partners of The European Library. By the beginning of 2008, a further nine national libraries within the European Union and the European Free Trade Association had joined the service.

The European Library took a further step towards its enlargement with the EDLproject, during which national libraries continued to join The European Library. The project also focused on multilingualism, undertook the first steps towards a European Metadata Registry and created a roadmap for potential digitization efforts in the national libraries.

Year of JoiningNational Libraries
2005Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy-Florence, Italy-Rome
2006Malta, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Serbia, Croatia, Denmark
2007Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Russia-Moscow
2008Albania, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Turkey, Russia Saint Petersburg, Ukraine
*San Marino, Vatican City (collections not searchable)
2011Wales

The European Library and Europeana

The European Library provided much of the organization and support required to launch Europeana – a European Commission initiative that makes millions of digital objects from libraries, museums and archives accessible to the public via the Europeana website.

When the European Parliament called for Europeana to be established, the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), under the auspices of the National Library of the Netherlands and CENL's service The European Library, were asked to submit for a project under the eContentplus programme. Work began on a prototype in 2007 and Europeana was launched in November 2008.

Europeana now operates independently but The European Library continues to work closely with Europeana. The European Library is the aggregator of digital content from national libraries for Europeana and delivers digital content from national libraries on a monthly basis to Europeana.

As of July 2012, The European Library was the second biggest content provider to Europeana, [6] with 3.45 million items added to the Europeana database.

Some human and technical resources are also shared between Europeana and The European Library.

Virtual exhibitions

In addition to its search engine, The European Library pulls together themes from the collections of Europe's national libraries [7] and displays them in virtual exhibitions. These exhibitions unite geographically disparate objects in a single online space, offering Pan-European sources on the topic.

Financing and ownership

The European Library is financed by its owners, the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL). The portal is maintained by The European Library Office located in the premises of the Dutch Royal Library in The Hague. Its programme director is Jill Cousins. [15]

Partner libraries

The 48 National Libraries who participate in The European Library project are:

Research Libraries who have also contributed content to The European Library as a result of the Europeana Libraries project include:

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digitization</span> Converting information into digital form

Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format. The result is the representation of an object, image, sound, document, or signal obtained by generating a series of numbers that describe a discrete set of points or samples. The result is called digital representation or, more specifically, a digital image, for the object, and digital form, for the signal. In modern practice, the digitized data is in the form of binary numbers, which facilitates processing by digital computers and other operations, but digitizing simply means "the conversion of analog source material into a numerical format"; the decimal or any other number system can be used instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital object identifier</span> ISO standard unique string identifier for a digital object

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Books</span> Service from Google

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of library and information science</span> Overview of and topical guide to library science

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fedora Commons</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania</span>

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania is a national cultural institution which collects, organizes and preserves Lithuania's written cultural heritage content, develops the collection of Lithuanian and foreign documents relevant to research, educational and cultural needs of Lithuania, and provides library information services to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Library of Moldova</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metadata</span> Data about data

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Library of Latvia</span> National library of Latvia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Europeana</span> Digital collection of European cultural heritage

Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. It includes records of over 50 million cultural and scientific artefacts, brought together on a single platform and presented in a variety of ways relevant to modern users. The prototype for Europeana was the European Digital Library Network (EDLnet), launched in 2008.

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is an open access digital archive for archaeological research outputs. It is located in The King's Manor, at the University of York. Originally intended to curate digital outputs from archaeological researchers based in the UK's Higher Education sector, the ADS also holds archive material created under the auspices of national and local government as well as in the commercial archaeology sector. The ADS carries out research, most of which focuses on resource discovery, cross-searching and interoperability with other relevant archives in the UK, Europe and the United States of America.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">German National Library of Science and Technology</span> German national library for engineering, technology, and natural sciences

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Canadiana.org, formerly the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, is a non-profit dedicated to preserving Canada's heritage and making it accessible online.

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The European Film Gateway (EFG) is a single access point to the digitized holdings of historical European film documents from numerous film archives and cinematheques, including over 600,000 individual objects from over 60 collections. The European Film Gateway gives access to images, textual materials, and moving images. The vast contents include film stills, set photos, posters, set drawings, portrait photographs, scripts, correspondences, film censorship and visa rulings, out-of-print books, film programs and reviews, as well as newsreels, documentaries, commercials, and feature films. The portal facilitates access to the archives which hold the original materials.

References

  1. CENL, Official Website of CENL. Accessed 9 October 2015
  2. Singer, Natasha "Playing Catch-Up in a Digital Library Race." New York Times, 8 January 2011. Accessed 17 January 2011.
  3. "Europe's national libraries and CENL commit to collaboration and mutual support as they build on the legacy of The European Library: TEL services to be discontinued from 31 December 2016" (PDF). 13 December 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2019. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  4. The European Library Vision and Mission. TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  5. Van Veen, Theo and Oldroyd, Bill. "Search and Retrieval in The European Library." D-Lib Magazine Volume 10 Number 2 (2004). Accessed 18 January 2011.
  6. List of Europeana contributors Archived 21 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine . Europeana.eu. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  7. Bjørner, Susanne. Thinking About Culture and Language. Searcher, 1 June 2009. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  8. Manuscripts and Princes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 30 July 2012.
  9. Travelling through History TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 30 July 2012.
  10. Reading Europe: European Culture Through The Book TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  11. A Roma Journey TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  12. Napoleonic Wars TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  13. Treasures of Europe's National Libraries TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  14. National Library Buildings TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.
  15. About Us TheEuropeanLibrary.org. Accessed 18 January 2011.