Europeana Reopens

After crashing under the weight of demand, the EU's digital library is back online, with an increased server capacity.

When the European Union launched its digital library, Europeana, last month, it never expected the demand that ensued. On its 20 November launch it received a staggering 10 million hits an hour, causing the server to crash, and forcing the EU to suspend the service.

Now, however, Europeana, which archives over two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films, according to the BBC, is back online with a quadrupled server capacity, although the site does warn that "the user experience may not be optimal in this test phase."

By the time Europeana is fully operation – in 2010 – it’s hoped that it will contain 10 million works.