The European Library is a free service that offers access to the resources of the 48 national libraries of Europe in 20 languages. Resources can be both digital or bibliographical (books, posters, maps, sound recordings, videos, etc.).

Currently The European Library gives access to 150 million entries across Europe. The amount of referenced digital collections is constantly increasing. Quality and reliability are guaranteed by the 48 collaborating national libraries of Europe. The European Library is a non-commercial organisation.

What is a national library?

A national library is the library specifically established by a country to store its information database. National libraries usually host the legal deposit and the bibliographic control centre of a nation.

The European Library service is for anyone world-wide seeking for library material; books of course but also book references, maps, photographs, music, videos, etc.

The European Library provides a vast virtual collection of material from all disciplines and offers visitors with interest a simple access to European cultural resources.

The 48 European national libraries participating in The European Library are all members of the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), a foundation aiming at increasing and reinforcing the role of national libraries in Europe. Members of CENL are the national librarians of the Council of Europe Member States.

There are two kinds of participants in The European Library:

• The 32 Full Participants are the national libraries of Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy - Florence, Italie - Rome, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania , Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia - Moscow, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

  The digital collections of Full Participants are accessible through the HOME and COLLECTIONS pages of The European Library website.

• The 16 Basic Participants are the national libraries of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia - St. Petersbourg, San Marino, "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Turkey, Ukraine and Vatican City.

  The digital collections of Basic Participants will be included at a later stage into the HOME and COLLECTIONS pages of The European Library website. Currently it is possible to view Participants treasures and libraries details through the LIBRARIES page.

The day-to-day work (management, marketing, implementation, maintenance, design, editorial work, development, technical helpdesk etc.) is done by The European Library Office team, based in the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague.

The European Library was initiated with European funding and went live as an online service in March 2005. Since then, new projects have been supported with European co-funding and continue to build upon The European Library:

The TEL-ME-MOR project (2005-2007) was launched to support the addition of the 10 national libraries from the EU New Members States in becoming Full Participants of The European Library.

Through EDL project (2006-2008), The European Library's objective is to significantly extend its current collection records by adding 9 national libraries within the European Union/European Free Trade Association to its Full Participants list. This collection boost will generate over 50 million new records of objects (books, journals, etc.), all searchable through the same single access point; the HOME page.

Thanks to EDL project a further 60-100 new collections are being brought into The European Library network. By the end of 2007, all the digital collections of the European Union national libraries will be referenced in The European Library.

TELplus (2007-2009) is a targeted project funded by the European Commission; it aims to OCR more than 20 million pages of content in many languages, to make library data OAI compliant and therefore harvestable. Additionally, the national libraries of Bulgaria and Romania will join The European Library as part of TELplus.

FUMAGABA (2008-2009) is a project of The European Library that aims at integrating the collections of the national libraries of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Georgia, Armenia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Azerbaijan. FUMAGABA partners are members of CENL and are becoming Full Participants with the financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

The European Library is the organisational ground for the "European digital library". This European Commission initiative will encompass not only libraries but also museums, archives and other holders of cultural heritage material. website Click here to access Europeana webiste.

Vision of The European Library: Provision of equal access to promote world-wide understanding of the richness and diversity of European learning and culture.

Mission of The European Library: The European Library exists to open up the universe of knowledge, information and cultures of all Europe's national libraries.

The day-to-day work (management, marketing, implementation, maintenance, design, editorial work, development, technical helpdesk etc.) is done by :

The European Library Office
c/o the Koninklijke Bibliotheek
National Library of the Netherlands
PO Box 90407
2509 LK The Hague
The Netherlands

• How to reach The European Library office?


• Meet the people behind The European Library website