Europeana: Digital Access to Europe's Cultural Heritage

Europeana is a web-based portal that enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. It promotes discovery and networking opportunities in a multilingual space where users can engage, share in and be inspired by the rich diversity of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage. The environment in which Europeana operates is volatile, and influenced by unpredictable technological, political and financial forces. While the volatility of these forces can act as a threat, right now they also highlight the potential of Europeana as a force for cross-border integration, a platform for digital innovation and a vehicle for growth. This paper provides an overview of Europeana's success stories over the past year, which has been one of substantial change, fresh initiatives and significant innovation, as well as some of the discussions surrounding the technical challenges of heritage digitization (e.g. copyright, licensing, content sourcing, data models) and the project's plans for distribution and engagement in the forthcoming years.