The European Union has finally opened its digital online
library, Europeana, to the public, allowing users everywhere
free access to the rich archives of EU's 27 member states. The
library includes more than 2 million books, maps, recordings,
photographs, archival documents, paintings, and films from
national libraries and cultural institutions, all of which have
been digitally encoded and uploaded to Europeana. And that's
just the beginning; the EU plans to continue adding content over
the next several years. "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
Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding
said in a statement. "I now call on Europe's cultural
institutions, publishing houses and technology companies to fill
Europeana with further content in digital form. We should make
Europeana a home for interactive creative part