The European Union’s Europeana portal project was launched yesterday, offering user access to a wealth of cultural heritage content, harvested from the continent’s museums, archives and libraries.
There has been some scepticism about the long-term success of the project, especially in regards to its sustainability model and it’s ability to deflect users away from Google – a problem for any budding portal.
However, two recent events might changes the sceptics’ views.
Firstly, is the overwhelming popularity of the site on its first day – 10m hits, according to the website, with the unpleasant side effect that the site will be down until mid-December.
Recent comments from Google suggest they might be interested on working with Europeana, a partnership that would definelty add to the portal’s impact. It will be interesting to see how this develops.