WIREDGOV

Over 53 million works of art, books, musical scores and historical records are accessible to the public through the Europeana platform. And at a meeting yesterday under the auspices of the Netherlands Presidency of the Council of the EU and chaired by Dutch culture minister Jet Bussemaker, the EU ministers of culture unanimously agreed to make digital heritage collections even more accessible and usable in the future. They also agreed to improve cooperation in relation to Europeana as a whole.

Ms Bussemaker expressed satisfaction at having made these agreements with her European counterparts. ‘Cultural and scientific institutions in Europe possess a wealth of cultural treasures,’ she said. ‘It’s fantastic that people can now explore famous works of art and browse the pages of ancient texts at home or at school – with just the click of a mouse. My colleagues and I have agreed to make digital heritage more accessible to the public via Europeana, so that more people can benefit.’

Online access

Better online access to cultural heritage is one of the issues that the Netherlands has put on its Presidency agenda. Currently, over 3,700 museums, archives and libraries share their material on the Europeana platform. The aim is to enable the public to access digitised collections belonging to European cultural and scientific institutions, regardless of national borders. To make this possible, the ministers resolved to enhance the platform’s technical quality and make it more attractive to users. In addition, they made agreements on how the platform will be organised, so it remains future-proof and European cultural heritage remains easy to access online.

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Digital collection

Launched in 2008, Europeana receives funding from the EU and from individual member states to make digital heritage collections accessible to the public. The website enables visitors to discover for themselves the similarities, differences and links between the histories and cultures of European countries. Schools, researchers and people in the creative industries can tap into this information to discover, learn and draw inspiration.

A good example is the #BigArtRide project, which takes visitors on a virtual bike tour of art treasures from across Europe. The online platform is popular with schools. For example, teachers of European history can draw on its resources for a project on the First World War, or consult the Europeana Fashion portal, where there’s a wealth of information on European dress and fashion through the ages.