I’m going to do an explanation of two libraries that I though to be the best, and I’m going to review some of their characteristics:
- British library: It is in the United Kingdom. It holds over 150 millon items in a lot of languages and formats. This library offers more than 100 million items for researchers and library patrons worldwide which were previously unavailable outside the Library due to soem copyright restrictions. In line with a government directive that the British Library must cover a percentage of its operating costs, a fee is charged to the user. However, this service is no longer profitable and has led to a series of restructures to try to prevent losses. When Google Books started, the British Library signed an agreement with Microsoft to digitise a number of books from the British Library for its project. This material was only available to readers in the USA, and closed in May 2008.
- European Library: It is an Internet service that offers acces to 47 European national libraries. This librari has digital and non-digital resources, including books, magazines, journals, audio recordings, etc. This library offers a free searching and delivers metadata records as well as digital objects: some free, others at cost. The global management of The European Library is based on a group of 23 national libraries, these group of libraries are used to maintain and develop the services.
This library, was initiated on 17 , March 2005. But the European Library took a further step towards its enlargement with EDLproject, that consist of adding digital objects and items of the remaining EU & EFTA national libraries into the European Library. This project has the cooperation of Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain and Sweden. EDLproject was also responsible for 2 successful workshops looking at the technical and political issues of bringing other cultural heritage digital repositories together as a European digital library.
This project, was financially supported by the European Commission.
REFERENCES:
European Library. (2009, August 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:24, October 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=European_Library&oldid=309715218
British Library. (2009, October 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:25, October 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=British_Library&oldid=318866413
Bristish Librarie. ( 209). In Orex. October, 19, 2009, from http://www.orex.es/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4&Itemid=20&lang=es
