Search the site:

Since 1992, the community Hub of Libraries in Europe!

Striving towards an equitable, democratic and sustainable society

The European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations is an independent umbrella association of library, information and documentation associations and institutions in Europe.

Digital Agenda for Europe: Digital Libraries Initiative

25 October 2010

Europe's cultural and scientific riches at a click of a mouse 

In ancient times, the library of Alexandria was said to contain up to 70% of all human knowledge. The challenge for the digital age is to do even better than that – and make the result last longer.
 
The EU's digital libraries initiative sets out to make all Europe’s cultural resources and scientific records – books, journals, films, maps, photographs, music, etc. – accessible to all, and preserve them for future generations.
 
Europeana think culture
www.europeana.eu

The initiative focuses on two areas:

  • cultural heritage – creating electronic versions of the materials in Europe's libraries, archives and museums, making them available online, for work, study or leisure, and preserving them for future generations; 
  • scientific information – making research findings more widely available online and keeping them available over time. 
A further key goal is to set up and develop Europeana – a single access point for consulting digital copies of the materials held by libraries, museums and archives. In "analogue times", if you wanted to research a subject – Rembrandt, for instance – you had to travel all over Europe to find material. But with the European digital library, you will be able to access all of it online – his works, books and documentary, films about him, drawings, photographs etc. – regardless of where the originals are held. 
 
The digital libraries initiative is part of the Commission’s Digital Agenda for Europe.
 
< back to overview
Share this  |