Introducing Europeana
All across the world, museums, galleries, libraries and archives are digitizing their collections so that anyone anywhere can explore and learn from them. Once these collections are made public online, digital platforms like Europeana in Europe, or the DPLA in the US, or Trove in Australia, work hard to make sure other people can find and use them. For research. For sharing. For building new things.
Europeana’s purpose is to ‘transform the world with culture’. And the Europeana Collections website provides access to over 53m cultural heritage items from more than 3,500 institutions across Europe.
To realize its ambitious vision, Europeana draws on the skills of its partner cultural heritage institutions and its professional network, the Europeana Network Association. This group consists of over 1,700 culture and technology professionals from across Europe and beyond, who all want to see culture used as a force for good, particularly in education, research and the creative industries. These industries need that culture to be open – to be of high quality, to be from authentic sources, and to be free from restrictions to its use.
Jill Cousins, Executive Director of the Europeana Foundation, talks about why open culture is in her heart and mind from dawn until dusk.
What is open culture? Interview with Jill Cousins from Europeana on Vimeo.
