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Greetings everyone -- this is heartening -- interest in a *cultural* website was so great that it overwhelmed it. Sounds like a wonderful site; I'm looking forward to seeing it when it reopens.
Suzy Frechette
St. Louis Public Library
European library site crashes hours after launch
AP
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European culture went digital - but it only lasted a day.
A massive online library and museum project crashed within 24 hours of its launch after millions sought to view treasures collected from museums, national libraries and archives, the European Union said Friday.
"We are doing our utmost to reopen Europeana in a more robust version as soon as possible," the http://www.europeana.eu site said. "We will be back by mid-December."
The crash was an anticlimax to a heralded launch. The EU blamed overwhelming interest, saying more than 10 million hits per hour late Thursday overburdened the computer system.
Instead of the rich color-and-light texture of a Vermeer painting, there only was a stark black-and-white page, saying: "The Europeana site is temporarily not accessible due to overwhelming interest after its launch."
The Web site collected some 3 million artifacts - including books, maps, paintings and videos - from some of Europe's top museums, such as the Louvre in Paris and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It will be available in 23 languages including English, French, German and Spanish.
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Announcement note from the EU delegation in D.C.:
Europeana, Europe's multimedia online library has
> opened to the public. At http://www.europeana.eu/portal/,
> Internet users around the world can now access more than two
> million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archival
> documents, paintings and films from national libraries and
> cultural institutions of the EU's 27 Member States.
> Europeana opens up new ways of exploring Europe's
> heritage: anyone interested in literature, art, science,
> politics, history, architecture, music or cinema will have
> free and fast access to Europe's greatest collections
> and masterpieces in a single virtual library through a web
> portal available in all EU languages. But this is just the
> beginning. In 2010, Europeana will give access to millions
> of items representing Europe's rich cultural diversity
> and will have interactive zones such as communities for
> special interests. Between 2009 and 2011, some EUR2 million
> per year of EU funding will be dedicated to this.
>
>