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'''The European Library''' is a service on the World Wide Web that offers access to the resources of the 45 national libraries of Europe. The resources, both digital and non-digital, include books, magazines, journals, audio recordings and other material. The European Library portal offers free searching, and delivers metadata records as well as digital objects: some free, others at cost. The global management of The European Library is based on a consortium of relevant national libraries, all in charge of maintaining and developing the portal services. The European Library Initiative '''The European Library''' portal was created in cooperation with 9 national libraries and CENL (Conference of European National Librarians) under TEL (The European Library: Gateway to Europe's Knowledge) project. Initiated in 2001, the TEL project ended in 2004 and was funded under the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission. The national libraries involved in the project were those of Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland and United Kingdom. TheEuropeanLibrary.org portal was successfully launched on March 17, 2005, hosting over 500.000 visitors in a little more than a year. There are currently 19 national libraries’ searchable collections available from the portal and further 21 national libraries’ collections accessible through the portal hyperlinks. National libraries of Austria, Croatia and Serbia joined in 2005. Partnership is extended throughout Europe The national libraries of the 10 European Union New Member States are presently joining The European Library service in the TEL-ME-MOR project timeframe (The European Library: Modular Extensions for Mediating Online Resources) (2005 -2007). On January 1 2006 the national libraries of Estonia and Latvia as well as the Danish Royal Library became full members of the consortium. From 29 to 38 European members The European Library took a further step towards its enlargement by adding 9 national libraries within the EDL project (European Digital Library) launched in September 2006. The countries involved are either members of the European Union or the European Free Trade Association: Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Next to assisting participants in becoming full partners of The European Library, the project focuses on multi-linguality and sets the first steps towards the establishment of a European Metadata Registry. Furthermore it investigates potential digitization efforts. EDL project is financially supported by the European Commission under the eContentplus Programme and will run for 18 months. Towards the European Digital Library In the near future, The European Library aims to become the central gateway to all electronic resources for 45 European national libraries. On March 2, 2006 the European Commission issued a press release stating that The European Library shall provide infrastructure for the European Digital Library, a common service to access the collections of all major digital heritage holders (libraries, archives and museums) in Europe. A concrete multi-lingual search tool TheEuropeanLibrary.org portal is constantly adjusting to the new end-users needs and mirrors the national libraries extension. At first, the portal was in an experimental stage and only accessible through Internet Explorer 6.0 web browser. Since June 2005 visitors using Internet Explorer (PC users) but also Camino (MAC users), Netscape, Mozilla or Firefox can benefit from The European Library services. Other browsers like Opera, Safari and Galeon are not yet compatible with the architecture of The European Library portal (client-side XML parsing). TheEuropeanLibrary.org portal is maintained by The European Library Office located in the premises of the National Library of The Netherlands in The Hague and is managed by Jill Cousins, head of The European Library.
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