Anyone in the world can now access over 14 million digitised books, maps, photographs, paintings, film and music clips from cultural institutions across Europe through Europe’s digital library Europeana. Launched in 2008 with two million objects, Europeana has already passed the initial target for 2010 of 10 million objects.

Europeana was launched as a prototype in November 2008 as Europe’s gateway to allow internet users to search and get direct access to digitised books, maps, paintings, newspapers, photographs, film fragments and all sorts of audiovisual documents from Europe’s cultural institutions. The European Commission audiovisual service is working on making all of their archived material available to Europeana directly.

Digitised photographs, maps, paintings, museum objects and other images make up 64% of the Europeana collection. 34% of the collection is dedicated to digitised texts, including more than 1.2 million complete books that can be viewed online and/or downloaded. The texts cover thousands of rare manuscripts and the earliest printed books (incunabula) from before 1500. Video and sound material represents less than 2% of the collections.

Currently, Europeana has a virtual exhibition running:  ‘Reading Europe’ presents a rich choice from Europe’s rare books and literary works.

See: Europa Press Releases

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