Europeana

November 20, 2008 5:36 AM

Europeana is the new EU digital library. It gives multilingual access to two million digitized books and other items of cultural and historical significance held in over 1,000 institutions in the 27 EU states. There will be 10 million by 2010. Soon after its launch the website froze, its servers overwhelmed by over "10 million hits an hour".
posted by stbalbach (21 comments total)

I would post to thank you for bringing this marvellous resource to my notice but I'm afraid it's taking me ages to read all the links.
posted by Abiezer at 5:43 AM on November 20, 2008

The entire site seems to be frozen for me right now, so I can't access the two million books from 1,000 institutions. I'm going to go ahead and blame this on the crushing power of traffic from Metafilter.
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:55 AM on November 20, 2008

I'm able to get through intermittently.
posted by stbalbach at 5:57 AM on November 20, 2008

This would be so wonderful if I could access it!
posted by Lush at 5:57 AM on November 20, 2008

I was only joking with the first post - and now I'm getting 503 errors too. It'll all still be there once the fuss has died down I'm sure.
posted by Abiezer at 6:03 AM on November 20, 2008

I, at least, get lots of small thumbnails of Gustave Courbet's "L'Origine du monde" at the portal page. Haha, figures! Give people "access to two million digitized books and other items of cultural and historical significance" and they immediately start looking for nakedness!

Seems like an amazing site, though. I shall explore it later.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 6:10 AM on November 20, 2008

This is a post about an inaccessible site?
posted by DU at 6:17 AM on November 20, 2008

How do we know this entire post isn't a LIE?
posted by Lord_Pall at 6:29 AM on November 20, 2008

As the link is taking ages to load I'm mulling over the name; is the term Europeana meant to recall Americana or does it mean something in one of the other European languages?
posted by Gratishades at 6:54 AM on November 20, 2008

That's so exactly what would happen if a site like this launched in the U.S. It would be, like, sooo overloaded and stuff.
posted by nosila at 7:05 AM on November 20, 2008

One isn't seeing it. Perhaps you should have waited a day or two before doing the FPP.
posted by digaman at 7:11 AM on November 20, 2008

wow thatspretty impressive,thanks
posted by adamficekblog at 7:12 AM on November 20, 2008

Heh, I finally got in, and one of the first thumbnails that loaded was a completely explicit photo of a woman's vagina, NSFW. There will always be a Europe. I look forward to exploring the rest of the site (and not because of the vagina, which isn't my favorite flavor).
posted by digaman at 7:21 AM on November 20, 2008

Actually, digaman, that wasn't a photo, but abovementioned "L'Origine Du Monde", a painting by Gustave Courbet, French XIX century artist whose ability to shock and entertain doesn't seem to have faded one little bit since then. Larry Flint probably keeps a reproduction on his mantelpiece...
posted by Skeptic at 8:23 AM on November 20, 2008

Like many other things the EU has done, this is a fine thing with a name that only a technocrat could love.
posted by atrazine at 8:57 AM on November 20, 2008

"Europeana" must have been the name of Courbet's girlfriend.
posted by steef at 9:26 AM on November 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Well, according to this Times article, "L'Origine Du Monde" has become quite mainstream after more than 10 years of being on display at the Musée d'Orsay. It's become the Mona Lisa of female genitalia. For the flocks of school children that visit Orsay on a class trip, the only puzzling thing about the painting is probably the hair.
posted by elgilito at 9:35 AM on November 20, 2008

That's bigger than mypeana, but at least mine works
posted by bonaldi at 11:14 AM on November 20, 2008

Sounds like a great thing, but I've been trying to get through for over twelve hours (not 12 hours straight, obviously) and haven't even succeed in loading the front page.
posted by paisley henosis at 11:56 PM on November 20, 2008

digaman, that wasn't a vagina. It was a beautiful vulva though.
posted by saucysault at 3:10 AM on November 21, 2008

The Europeana site is temporarily not accessible due to overwhelming interest after its launch (10 million hits per hour).

We are doing our utmost to reopen Europeana in a more robust version as soon as possible.

We will be back by mid-December.

[on their site]
posted by paisley henosis at 8:44 AM on November 21, 2008