THINK CULTURE – EUROPE’S NEW DIGITAL LIBRARY

Now this is exciting and is a great example of how the internet is being used to unlock cultural wealth and distribute it freely around the world. Europeana is the new European digital library, museum and archive. Containing 2 million digital objects the library aggregates the content of 48 European national libraries, as well as museum’s and archives. You can read about the background of the project in the IFLA journal

The website was launched in November this year, but had to shut down again because the system couldn’t cope with the 10 million hits per hour it was receiving. It is planned to be re-launched in January. The project site has a great demo of what to expect when it’s up and running – it looks like a fabulous resource.

WHAT ARE UNIVERSITIES FOR?

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has produced a paper called What are universities for? The authors’ contention is that a university that moulds itself only to present demands, and market forces is not performing as a university should.

“We assert that they [universities] have a deeper, fundamental role that permits them to adapt and respond to the changing values and needs of successive generations, and from which the outputs cherished by governments are but secondary derivatives.”

The paper is an interesting and in parts inspiring argument about the need for universities to operate within an environment of freedom in order for creativity to flourish. It is this creativity, say the authors, which enables universities to produce solutions to society’s needs and advance human knowledge.

They argue against the increasing demand for immediate results and the ranking of one university against another. The authors quote Drew Faust’s inaugural address as President of Harvard. “A university is not about results in the next quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that moulds a lifetime; learning that transmits the heritage of millennia; learning that shapes the future”.