Geel_jire Posted November 20, 2008 BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's heritage went digital Thursday when the European Union launched an online library putting famous works such as Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Beethoven's 9th Symphony just a mouse click away. Europeana ( www.europeana.eu ) gives multilingual access to two million digitized books and other items of cultural and historical significance held in over 1,000 institutions in the 27 EU states. "Europeana offers a journey through time, across borders, and into new ideas of what our culture is. More than that, it will connect people to their history and, through interactive pages and tools, to each other," EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement. Soon after its launch the website froze, its servers overwhelmed by volume of 10 million hits an hour. "It shows the huge interest of European users in this project," Reding's spokesman said. Europeana's director, Jill Cousins, says the new portal is not just Europe's answer to portals such as Google Book Search, but goes a step further. "If you go onto Google, you don't always know what you're getting ... Here you do. The institutions have been here for hundreds of years and they know what they're talking about and that's what you're getting out of it," Cousins told reporters. story as of this posting the site is down ... but should be back up soon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
