Europeana
The main aim of Europeana (www.europeana.eu) is to enable wide multilingual access to and dissemination of digital cultural heritage material held in the collections of Europe's libraries, museums, archives, audio-visual archives and galleries, and its re-use in other sectors (e.g. education, research, tourism or the creative industries).
The Europeana mission statement is “We want to transform the world with culture! We want to build on Europe’s rich heritage and make it easier for people to use, whether for work, for learning or just for fun”.
As a multi-sided platform, Europeana aims to create value for end-users, cultural heritage institutions and creative re-use. By connecting digital heritage collections across Europe, Europeana:
· helps cultural heritage institutions share their collections across sectors and national borders (currently more than 53 million items - artworks, artefacts, books, videos and sounds - from around 3 700 organizations)
· gives a wide range of audiences access to the richness and diversity of European cultures and facilitates research in and knowledge of the multi-faceted culture and history of Europe and
· facilitates re-use in new and innovative cross-border online services, thereby contributing to the digital single market.
During the period under review, the further development of Europeana has been supported by
Legislative measures:
Commission Recommendation of 27 October 2011 on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (2011/711/EU) calls on Member States to contribute to the further development of Europeana, i.a. by setting up or reinforcing national aggregators, encouraging cultural institutions as well as publishers and other rightholders to make their digitised material accessible through Europeana and by raise awareness of Europeana.
Financial measures:
The CIP ICT Policy Support Programme from 2009-2013.
The Connecting Europe Facility from 2014-2020.
· Wide availability and dissemination of high-quality digital cultural heritage material
· Re-use of that material in new and innovative cross-border online services (in sectors such as education, research, tourism or the creative industries)
· Capacity-building, digital innovation and the development, uptake and consistent use of models, standards and frameworks for sharing content and metadata in the cultural heritage sector
44.9 million euros over the reporting period, broken down as follows:
2013 – 16m for Europeana and creativity (CIP ICT Policy Support Programme)
2014 – 8.9m for Europeana core service (Connecting Europe Facility, CEF)
2015 - 10m for Europeana core service (CEF)
2016 – 10m for Europeana core service (8m) and generic services (2m) (CEF)
Various evaluations have been conducted over the reporting period, including on technical aspects and user experience. An overarching political / policy assessment, from a culture policy perspective, is provided in the Council Conclusions of 31 May 2016 on “The role of Europeana for the digital access, visibility and use of European cultural heritage”.