Europeana

Europeana.eu is a prototype virtual library created by the European Commission, with links to over 4 million digital items, including images, texts, videos and sounds, which went live in November of 2008.  It can be viewed in a variety of languages, and is intended to provide inspiration through access to Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage.  Contributors include amazing museums, galleries, archives, libraries and audio-visual collections from all over Europe.

Certain aspects of the site are still very much a work in process, such as the Communities pages, and they are actively soliciting feedback from users as to what final form these features will take.  Already up and running is a My Europeana feature, with which items, searches and tags can be saved.  There is also a timeline navigator function, the ability to browse recent additions to the content, and a look into others’ searches.

As someone who just loves discovering a new resource to explore, and loves anything artistic, finding this site felt like I had just entered Valhalla (The project is run by a team from the national library of the Netherlands).

Europeana Version 1.0, which will include access to over 10 million digital items, is planned to launch in 2010.