EU digital library back online, one month after crash

The Europeana digital library reopened on Tuesday, more than a month after it crashed because of heavy use.

The European Commission says server capacity for the digital library has been quadrupled to handle demand.

The online library that pulled together collections from more than 1,000 institutions, including the British Library and the Louvre, crashed on its first day of operations — Nov. 20.

Its EU backers had failed to anticipate the 10 million hits per hour it experienced on the first day.

The Europeana project allows users to access films, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, maps, manuscripts, newspapers, and documents as well as books kept in European libraries.

By the time it is complete in 2010, it will provide access to most of Europe's great libraries and art galleries.

Europeana is being run by a staff of 14.

The current site has a note saying it is in a "test phase" and the number of users may be limited at peak hours.

"At the moment things are going very smoothly. The commission will monitor (the situation) along with the Europeana team," European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr told Agence France Press.

"We expect that in the course of February we will be able to add new material to Europeana to make it even more interesting than it already is today."