Once they find what they are looking for, if they want to access the full content of the item, they can click through to the original site that holds the content. Users search this contextual information. Europeana collects contextual information – or metadata – about the items, including a small picture.

The digital objects that users can find in Europeana are not stored on a central computer, but remain with the cultural institution and are hosted on their networks. Įuropeana gives access to different types of content from different types of heritage institutions. Function and description Įuropeana contains digitalised museum collections. New features were added in 2011, including a translation tool and a function to expand searches onto other platforms, including Wikipedia. It ran for 2.5 years and, by 2010, the initial prototype had developed into a full service, providing access to over 10 million digital records of cultural objects. The successor of EDLnet (Europeana version 1.0) began life in February 2009. It initially provided access to 4.5 million digital objects, which was twice as many as initially intended, and received data contributions from over a thousand separate organisations, including many internationally renowned libraries, gallery and museum collections from many different European capital cities. The European Digital Library Network prototype was launched on 20 November 2008.

The European Commission funded EDLnet from its eContentplus programme. The first project that started the building of Europeana was the European Digital Library Network (EDLnet), whose role was to establish a prototype model for a user-focussed service, capable of working across national borders and across differing domains. This made clear the intention to create and support a European digital library, covering the whole European Union in order to encourage growth of the information society and related media industries. It also offered strong political support to the Directorate's strategy (i2010: communication on digital libraries), published in September 2005. The letter helped to give added support to work that the European Commission's Information Society and Media Directorate had already been conducting over the previous ten years, such as the Telematics for Libraries project. It urged the creation of a virtual European library in order to make Europe's cultural heritage more accessible to everyone.

The Europeana Foundation is the governing body of the service, and is incorporated under Dutch law as Stichting Europeana.Įuropeana had its beginnings after a letter was jointly sent in April 2005 by Jacques Chirac, President of France, and the premiers of Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Hungary to the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso. The prototype for Europeana was the European Digital Library Network ( EDLnet), launched in 2008. 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. November 20, 2008 15 years ago ( ) (prototype), February 2009 15 years ago ( 2009-02) (official version 1.0)Įuropeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. Meta-aggregator and display space for European digitised works

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