Update on the European Digital Library

Daniel Griffin, Workshop pieces together European Library digitisation project, Information World Review, December 19, 2006.  Excerpt:

In an initiative launched through the European Digital Library Project (EDLProject), representatives from the European Community's (EC) various eContentPlus funded programmes which are designed to create easier and improved access to digital collections, have gathered for a workshop held at the Austrian National Library.

The workshop was intended to begin the process of building the European digital library. Remarking on the initiative, Hans Petschar, the director of the Austrian National Library's picture archive said "It created an atmosphere of enormous willingness to work together with the European Library to achieve a European digital library." ...

Content...from book, audio, video, photography, rare texts and archived documents from across the EC will need to adhere to certain common criteria including metadata standards, which will mean that users such as researchers can search by theme, across a variety of formats and all under one search inquiry....

It is estimated the European digital library will be built over a three to four year period and its next move is to consider keeping the project sustainable with an organised business model. A second workshop is due to be held once more at the Austrian National Library at the end of January to consider the framework and timelines for the next phase.

Update. Also see the EDLProject's own press release on the meeting.