A few hours after the launch of the European hereritage digi-library www.europeana.eu a few weeks ago its server crashed: more than 13 million Europeans per hour wanted to have a look at iconic images from European history. It came back online mid-December.

Europeana.eu is a collaboration between universities, research institutes and content providers. The site is a prototype that will be developed in response to users’ feedback and made operational in 2009.

I tested the prototype search to check on Marius Bauer, whose paintings and etchings from India I love. It resulted in seven of his paintings in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Great stuff! And stuff that is usually in the depots of the museum!

Dick de Jong 2002 mentioned!

The second search on “India” brought me an even greater surpise: I found my name [Dick de Jong, 2002] on this site! It concerns VOC Gouvernor George Vernet’s grave board of 1775 that used to hang in the Dutch Reformed Church in Chinsurah, West Bengal, India. It must have come from my web page on the VOC in Chinsurah . I have information on this
church, which was destroyed in 1987 and not 1978, as the Europeana.eu site is saying.

I’ll defnitely keep an eye on this site!