The European Library — From Project to Service

Abstract

Launched in March 2005, The European Library is the operational result of a 3-year European Union funded project to create a cooperative framework and specify a system for integrated access to the major collections of the European national libraries. The project included the rudiments of a business plan and, unusually for a European Union project, intended from the beginning to try to make an operational service. The project gave proof of concepts in both technology and cooperative working across national boundaries. At the end of the project the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL) adopted The European Library and an Office was set up within the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Netherlands in May 2004. From June 2004 work was undertaken to turn the project and the experimental technology into a fully fledged robust service. The European Library will give access to digital and non-digital records and items from nine European national libraries. This numbers around 15,000,000 at launch, of which half a million are digitized objects. This paper covers the technological innovation, cooperation and business development required to launch and run this collaborative pan- European service. It also gives some examples of how research and discovery has benefited from this collaboration.