Massive interest causes crash of Europe's digital library site

Brussels, Nov 21 (IANS) The European Union said Friday that unexpected massive interest was the cause for the shut-down of Europe 's digital library 'Europeana' hours after it was launched Thursday.

Europeana had anticipated up to 5 million hits per hour on its site but the three servers employed to support Europeana in the Netherlands could not cope with the traffic of around 10 million hits per hour, explained the European Commission in a statement, reports EuAsiaNews.

'This is an unexpected difficulty, but it is also an encouraging sign that citizens in Europe and around the world have great interest in Europe's digital library,' it said.

Users can expect the Europeana site to work normally by mid-December.

At www.europeana.eu, Internet users around the world can now access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archival documents, paintings and films from national libraries and cultural institutions of the EU's 27 Member States.