European Library

The European Library ( German translation: "The European Library " ) is an Internet service that opens up access to the holdings of the 48 national libraries in Europe. The search is free and offers the possibility to access metadata and digital objects (most of which are free). The objects come from institutions from countries which are members of the Council of Europe. They range from catalog entries about books in full text to magazines, journals and sound recordings. The portal is available in 35 languages ​​, not all pages are ready consistently in all languages.

Since 2011, The European Library overseeing the project Europeana Libraries that collects over 5 million objects from 19 research libraries, organizes and provides via the Europeana. The participating research libraries are also partners of the European Library.

History and Concept

The European Library in its present form has several precursors. The starting point of the project GABRIEL (Gateway and Bridge to Europe 's National Libraries) represented in 1997, in which it was to establish a common web portal for European national libraries. At the beginning put the portal information about the respective library collections available, in addition to access their online library catalogs ( OPACs ).

On GABRIEL followed from 2001 to 2004 the project TEL ( The European Library ). For the first time an access to the content of many major European libraries should be possible. The project was partially funded by the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission. It involved the national libraries of Finland, Germany, Italy ( Florence), Italy ( Rome ), the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland and the UK.

This showed the portal TheEuropeanLibrary.org, which went online on 17 March 2005. Between 2005 and 2007, ten other national libraries from new EU member states as full partners of the European Library with the help of the project TEL -ME -MOR. Beginning of 2008, have joined from countries of the European Union and the European Free Trade Area of ​​the European Library further nine national libraries.

With the EDL project undertook The European Library further steps of enlargement, and other national libraries were with her. The project also focused multilingualism, took the first steps towards European Metadata Registry and created a plan for potential digitization efforts in the national libraries.

Not involved in the European Library are so far the National Library of Belarus in Minsk and the National and University Library of Kosovo ( BKUK ) in Prishtina. The Greenlandic National Library Nunatta Atuagaateqarfia is not a member.

The European Library and Europeana

The European Library has been instrumental in the implementation of the Europeana project. Europeana is an initiative of the European Commission, which makes it accessible to the public on the Europeana site millions of digital objects from Europe's libraries, museums and archives.

When the European Parliament called for the establishment of Europeana, they asked the Conference of European National Librarians (Conference of European National Librarians, CENL ) under the leadership of the Dutch National Library and " The European Library " to submit a project under the eContent plus program. Work on the prototype began in 2007. In November 2008, the Europeana went online.

Europeana now operates independently, there is but further close cooperation between the two projects. The European Library collects and organizes the digital content of European national libraries. In the month cycle, the results are made available on Europeana. In January 2011, the European Library, with 1.2 million exposed media was Europe's third largest data source. Both projects use some common technical resources. Also, some employees work for both programs.

Virtual Exhibitions

In addition to the search function shows The European Library virtual exhibitions. The gathered under one theme objects come from the collections of Europe's national libraries. Thus, the exhibitions geographically scattered objects combine into a single online space that provides a pan-European sources about the topic.

  • Reading Europe: Nearly 1000 selected by national libraries books, with curatorial information and in most cases, full-text versions.
  • A Roma Journey: texts, photographs, paintings and traditional songs that show the heritage of the Roma in Europe.
  • Napoleonic Wars: A selection of portraits, military maps, city maps, letters, books and other material from the Napoleonic Wars.
  • Treasures of Europe's National Libraries: A selected from European national libraries collection, which shows the most important objects of their collections.
  • National Library Buildings: Images of the National Libraries, the partners of the European Library are.

Financing and ownership

The European Library is funded by the Conference of European National Librarians (Conference of European National Librarians, CENL ). The portal is maintained by the The European Library office, which is located in the Royal Library of the Netherlands in The Hague. The Program Director is Jill Cousins ​​.

Member libraries

National libraries

List of the 48 national libraries, the member of the European Library are arranged by country:

European Union:

Other European countries:

Research Libraries

List of Research Libraries, which the European Library to join in 2011 as a result of the project " Europeana Libraries":

  • The Bavarian State Library
  • Hungarian Parliament Library
  • National Library of Wales
  • Romanian Academy Library
  • Trinity College Dublin
  • Universidad Complutense de Madrid
  • University of Belgrade
  • University of Bern
  • University College London
  • University of Ghent
  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
  • University of Lund
  • University of Oxford
  • University of Sibiu
  • University of Tartu
  • University of Uppsala
  • University of Vienna
  • Wellcome Library
  • Zurich Central Library
Slogan SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library National Library of Estonia National Library of Finland National Library of Greece National Library of Ireland National Library of Poland Slovak National Library British Library Cyprus Library National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina Liechtenstein State Library National Library of Norway National Library of Russia Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine Integrated Authority File
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