Euro library prototype in 2008

A comprehensive European Digital Library that brings together cultural material from libraries, archives and museums across the EU has moved a step closer to reality.

An EU expert group is hoping to launch a prototype by November, with digitised versions of at least two million books, photographs, maps, archive records and film material.

The plan is to expand the collection to more than six million items by 2010. A simple search mechanism will help users locate material.

The high-level expert group includes senior members of the British Medical Journal publishing group, Google UK’s European operations, the British Library, the Conference of European National Librarians and the Federation of European Publishers.

In November 2007, they agreed priorities, including drafting a copyright model for digitising out-of-print and orphan works, finding new ways of funding digitisation through public-private partnerships, and drafting rules on accessing and preserving scientific information.

The meeting followed the setting up, also in November, of the European Digital Library Foundation, a legal body for launching the library that will be able to hire staff and seek sponsorship.

The European Commission said its creation “formalises the collaboration between libraries, archives, museums and audiovisual archives in the delivery and sustainability of the European Digital Library”.

The European Digital Library project started in September 2006 and aims to integrate the digital collections of every national library, archive and museum in Europe.
www.edlproject.eu

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