Europeana: Up and…Down?
posted by Mark on November 21st, 2008
After 16 months in the making, the multinational online digital library Europeana finally opened to the public on November 20. The only problem is that demand was so high — 10 million hits per hour — the site crashed, and as of 4:58 PM EST on November 21, it remains down. If one were to access the site, one would (presumably) discover 2 million digital objects, ranging from books to films to photos, sound recordings, paintings, maps, newspapers and more. The wealth of material was culled from European museums, libraries and various archives and collections and is currently limited to public domain content, although that could soon change, given the immediate popularity and the site’s goal to reach a whopping 6 million items by 2010.
Related content:
November 24th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Update: As of November 24, the Europeana site is still down for the count. Its owners say they plan on having it back up, in a more robust format, by mid-December.
In the meantime, here’s a funny critique of Twilight, written in a fashion that is almost as infuriating as the movie probably is.