How does Europeana relate to generic search engines and to digitisation initiatives such as Google book-search?
Europeana is a cultural project and not a commercial undertaking. It creates a multimedia space on the web for everyone interested in European culture. Europeana will bring together, through one single access point, digitised material (books, documents from archives, audiovisual material, paintings) from different types of cultural institutions (archives, museums, audiovisual archives and libraries). Therefore Europeana will be far more specific than the generic search engines: it will give fewer hits, but more targeted results. Europeana is notable for strong features like the quality and authenticity of the content, guaranteed by the cultural organisations behind the service, and its openness in terms of cultural institutions that can participate and re-use of its material. Europeana has a broader remit than a service such as “Google Book Search”. Europeana will give access to different types of content from different types of cultural institutions, thus making it possible to bring t
