Digital Libraries: “Erasmus Award 2009” goes to Europeana.eu

Europeana.eu website of the unique European digital library Europeana, launched on November, 20 2008, has won “Erasmus Award 2009” “for Networking Europe”. The “Erasmus Award”, named after Erasmus of Rotterdam (a Dutch Renaissance humanist), is an annual prize awarded by the Dutch non-profit organization “Erasmus Foundation” to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science.

The content of the European digital library consists of a digitalized collection European books, work of art and modern audiovisual media, including paintings and other objects of art, manuscripts, letters, music, photos, television images and film- and audiofragments. Today the building of the huge library’s data bank with a capacity of up to ten millions images still is a work in progress. The website Europeana.eu in its turn is a surprising innovative interactive educational virtual exhibition in the field of the European cultural inheritance.

The leading idea of Europeana is the strong conviction that European countries can be connected by realizing in several languages more access to the European cultural heritage. National libraries and museums are closely working together in this unique project that started as the European Digital Library Network and has been enabled by the European Commission.