Introduction
EDLproject (European Digital Library project) is a Targeted Project funded by the European Commission under the eContentplus Programme, within the area of Cultural and scientific/scholarly content.

EDLproject is a direct response to the request of Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, made at the CENL (Conference of European National Librarians) conference in Luxembourg in September 2005 that national libraries should use their influence in the debate on the digitisation of European resources for access through the web.
The project management and coordination is assured by the German National Library and Eremo srl.

EDLproject & The European Library

EDLproject builds on The European Library, an ambitious pioneering collaboration between European national libraries supported by the EU and created under the auspices of CENL. The European Library offers a single access point to the electronic resources of the main European National Libraries as well as to other advanced library services. In particular, it offers users the following:

• It brings together disparate collections on the desktop and allows for cross-collection searching
• It presents integrated results and will deliver digital objects
• It enables types of collection-level searching which would otherwise be impossible.

By the end of EDLproject, The European Library portal will offer access to the digitised collections of all EU national libraries and some others. The portal will then have at least 31 of the 45 CENL partner libraries fully accessible.

EDLproject & TEL-ME-MOR

EDLproject is also a continuation of the TEL-ME-MOR project, which is supporting The European Library through the inclusion in the service of the ten New Member States’ National Libraries. TEL-ME-MOR also raises awareness and disseminates information on the opportunities for participation in future projects, aimed at fostering an increased participation of institutions and organisations from the New Member States in future calls for proposals published by the European Commission within the Cultural Heritage and Learning sectors of the IST Programme.

EDLproject objectives

• EDLproject integrates the bibliographic catalogues and digital collections of the National Libraries of Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain and Sweden, into The European Library: by the end of 2007 ALL EU countries will be members of the European Library service.

• EDLproject further enhances access to the European Library portal, by continuing to develop its multi-lingual capacity.

• EDLproject takes first steps towards collaboration between The European Library and other initiatives in the cultural domain, and expands the marketing and communication activities of The European Library service.

• EDLproject leverages the influence and resources of CENL as a key player and stakeholder in the content field to work towards a consensual resolution of certain issues raised by the Communication "i2010: Digital Libraries", such as potential availability of digital content from national libraries and the scope for collaboration between The European Library and other content providers funded by eContentplus.

EDLproject budget & timeframe

EDLproject has a total budget of € 2.114 million EUR, of which € 1 million contribution by the eContentplus programme. The project started in September 2006 and will last for 18 months.

Enter the European Digital Library project web site!