CHeriCoS

Yesterday I wrote about the big launch of the new European Digital Library called Europeana. Today I found that it is down due to the "overwhelming interest". They say:

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.

Back in Mid-December?? What kind of launch is this? It's a portal of and for 27 Countries! And they placed the launch date in every newspaper in Europe and even in the New York Times! What did they expect? That is not a good start at all ... very disappointing.

Today the EU launches the beta version of its new digital library portal. It combines and gives access to digital/digitized cultural heritage of 27 european countries. At the beginning there are over 2 million records. The major part of 52% is provided by France, whereas Germany's contribution is only by 1%. Today the server is mostly down due to the vast rush on the domain. But in a few days you should take a look at: http://www.europeana.eu/.