Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, December 04, 2007

EC endorses European Digital Library Foundation

European Digital Library Foundation welcomed by the Commissioner, a press release from the European Digital Library, November 28, 2007.  (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)  Excerpt:

Yesterday, the European Commission endorsed the work of the European Digital Library Foundation....“Europe's citizens should all be able to enjoy our rich cultural heritage. This Foundation is a significant step towards making that ambition come true," Commissioner Viviane Reding, responsible for Information Society and Media commented. "It shows the commitment of Europe's cultural institutions to work together to make their collections available and searchable by the public through a common and multilingual access point online."

Foundation members include the key European heritage and information associations. Their statutes commit members to work in partnership to:

  • Provide access to Europe's cultural and scientific heritage though a cross-domain portal
  • Co-operate in the delivery and sustainability of the joint portal
  • Stimulate initiatives to bring together existing digital content
  • Support digitisation of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage

The European digital library is developing its prototype site for launch next year. To coincide with the formal handover to the Commissioner, the Foundation announced the CITY as the first of the site's themes....

The digital library project is gathering digitised content from European archives, museums, audio-visual collections and libraries. It will use maps, artefacts, photos, sound, film material, books, archival records and artworks to explore two millennia of connectivity between Europe's cities....