This document discusses The European Library and its approach to marketing and serving virtual communities. It focuses on academics and researchers but also works with Europeana to reach a wider audience. Key points are that The European Library tailors its portal to academic needs and processes, provides multilingual access, engages in social media, and partners with Europeana to maximize its reach across Europe.

1. Virtual Communities in Europe: The European
Library approach
Fleur Stigter
Marketing Manager The European Library
‘Users for Usability’ Coordinator EDLnet / Europeana
Fleur.Stigter@kb.nl
Bridging Worlds: Knowing, Learning, Sharing conference
October 2008, Singapore
Abstract
In the virtual world, the library has to establish its place like any other content
provider, and (re)act according to constantly changing market demands. As
successful marketing comes from effective targeting, libraries have no choice but to
focus on clearly defined segmented audiences. This given has made The European
Library – gateway to Europe’s national library resources – focus its portal on the
(European) academic community and to fit The European Library services primarily
within academic working processes. This does not mean, however, that The
European Library does not try to reach other communities. The European Library is
also providing content to Europeana, the portal that will give access to all kinds of
material from many different cultural institutions from across Europe. As Europeana
serves various target groups and educational user groups, The European Library
reaches a much wider audience. In this paper further details are given about the
focus and other key elements of The European Library marketing approach.
Keywords: Library marketing, digital libraries, national libraries, portals, virtual
communities, Europeana, CENL, European Commission, Web2.0, API
1. Introduction
Earlier this year, The European Library established a Users Advisory Board. As Dame
Lynn Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library and Chair of the Executive Group
of The European Library, explained at that time: “It is significant that so many
leading librarians, academics and web2.0 experts have accepted our invitation to
join the Advisory Board. (…) Its formation symbolizes an important step in the
development of The European Library. In a very practical way, the Board will give a
voice to the user. We need to pay careful attention to the users points of view as we
continue to develop services for the researcher and information-seeker.”
The inaugural meeting of this board was entitled ‘What is the future for library
portals?’1 Together with representatives of Europe’s national libraries and several
other European-wide library organisations such as LIBER and CERL, they discussed the
future of library portals from different angles by performing a PESTLE analysis.2
1
‘European Library sets up user advisory board’, Michele Perry, in: Information World Review, 7th
April 2008
2
A PESTLE analysis focuses on broader market developments that may affect the marketing strategy
of an organisation. PESTLE stands for Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Legal,
Environmental.
1

2. The meeting ended with the conclusion that the critical factors for the future of
library portals are in meeting user needs, finding a sustainable business model for
the service and investing in ongoing innovation.3 In other words, libraries are able to
fulfil an important function in online environment but only if they behave as
proactive content providers, and, think and act according to the wishes of the
market.
Here an explanation is given as to how The European Library tries to meet these
critical factors and aims to reach an international audience that constantly changes
its demands.
2. Backgrounds
www.TheEuropeanLibrary.org is a service of the Conference of European National
Librarians (CENL). Founded in 1987 as a Foundation under Dutch law, CENL aims to
increase and reinforce the role of national libraries in Europe. Eighteen years after
its foundation, the first fully operational version of The European Library was
launched (2005).4
Image 1: Screenshot of The European Library homepage
The European Library gives integrated access to national library resources from
across Europe. Resources encompass many varieties of content including books,
posters, photographs, maps, sound recordings and video. To ensure that visitors can
always find their way to the material, whether or not it is already digitally available,
3
A summary can be find on the Users Advisory Board page of The European Library portal:
http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/organisation/about_u s/useradvisory_en.html
4
For a full historical overview of The European Library please see for instance ‘Online Collaboration
Between European National Libraries Since 1995 - Building Towards a European Digital Library’, Olaf
Janssen, Conference paper SLA 2006 conference (June 2006, Baltimore, USA)
2

3. every query leads to a list of bibliographic records of the participating libraries. On
estimation, The European Library currently holds over 150 million records. The
percentage of digital objects continues to grow. For instance, a further 20 million
pages of fully digitized material from collections across Europe will soon be added.5
All national libraries of the member-states of the Council of Europe can join CENL,
and also The European Library. By the end of 2008, from a total of 47 states of the
Council of Europe 45 countries will have become full partners of The European
Library. This broad range of partnership makes The European Library not only a truly
pan-European service (covering much more than just Western Europe) but also the
most comprehensive gateway to Europe’s catalogue entries.
Technological developments have greatly improved the search experience of The
European Library portal and it now offers centralised catalogue searching that is not
only comprehensive but also fast.
Various browsing experiences are being developed to bring more deep-web content
to the surface. A relatively new area of the portal is the online Exhibition Space.
Here, visitors can get an impression of the wide variety of cultural treasures
(showing different themes and collections), and become familiar with Europe’s
national library buildings and their history. Practical information about the libraries
is also presented, including opening hours and location.
Image 2: Screenshot of The European Library – national libraries of Europe
For first-time visitors to the portal, online user guides are available in a number of
languages. A video version has also been published, currently in English but with
plans to launch it in a number of other European languages.
Building upon the framework of The European Library a new service is currently
being developed, entitled Europeana. This service – originally known as the
5
This digitisation effort is coordinated via TELplus, a European Commission funded project that aims
to strengthen, extend and improve The European Library service. Key issues that are being addressed,
include improving access through OAI compliancy, and making more than 20 million pages from the
European National Libraries' digital content available with OCR.
3

4. ‘European digital library’ or EDL – is not yet available but the first public prototype
will be launched in November. It is being created to give integrated access to
millions of digital resources that have been made available by museums, archives,
libraries and audio-visual institutions from across Europe. It will be a simple but
powerful tool for finding resources from all over Europe. Books, journals, films,
maps, photos, music etc. will be available for everyone to consult – and to use, as
permitted by right holders.
Bringing together a massive amount of content together from a great number of
different institutions from across Europe, this new service will give access to
Europe’s intellectual and cultural history in an unprecedented way. “They [users] no
longer have to make decisions about what type of institution would hold the material
of interest. Is the Domesday Book (the national survey of England in 1086) in the
British Library or the UK’s National Archives? (…) Should Chopin’s manuscripts be in
Paris or Warsaw? The location of material will no longer be an impediment to
access.”6
Europeana is a European Commission driven initiative. As part of the i2010 Digital
Library Initiative it is funding the ‘European digital library network’ (EDLnet). One of
the key aims of this so-called thematic network is to produce a first prototype of
Europeana. The network consists of over 90 representatives of heritage and
knowledge organisations and IT experts from throughout Europe.
Building Europeana.eu - The European Commission’s objectives:
 To create a public domain access point
 To use digitised cultural and scientific heritage resources as input for a
wide range of information products and services
 To play a key role in the future growth of sectors such as learning and
tourism
 To inspire new creative enterprise and innovation
 To promote understanding of European connections and the sense of a
European identity
So far the creation of Europeana has gone through the following development
phases:
1. the creation of a ‘static’ maquette – a proof of concept of a user orientated
common interface for search, discovery and use across all domain content (an
animated demo showing the basic functionalities and features of the
anticipated prototype)
2. the creation of an operational prototype7 – a first working prototype mainly
focusing on back-end (technical) solutions
3. development of the final prototype
6
‘Web 2.0 ideas enrich Europe's digital heritage’, Jonathan Purday, Research Information (Aug/Sept.
2008) http://www.researchinformation.i fo/features/feature.php?feature_id=
n 185
7
A description of the prototype is given in “Europeana Prototype 1 description” (Catherine Lupovici
and Julie Verleyen, EDLnet Office, 2008). For an impression of the ‘Users expect the Interoperable’
conference during which this prototype was released:http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=eTiWQYsQcu E
4

5. After the launch of the final prototype (due for November 2008), Europeana will be
developed into a fully operational service, with a regular increase of content and
institutions associated with it and improving the robustness of the prototype.8 If all
goes according to plan by 2010, a full-service version with access to at least six
million items will be launched.
Europeana is important to The European Library not least because it helps reach the
widest possible audience. A citation of a European Union communiqué states: “A
common multilingual access point [Europeana] would make it possible to search
Europe’s distributed – that is to say, held in different places by different
organisations – digital cultural heritage online. Such an access point would increase
its visibility and underline common features. The access point should build on
existing initiatives such as The European Library (TEL), in which Europe’s libraries
already cooperate.”9
In sum, Europeana aims to serve a broader audience than The European Library. By
participating in this unique concept and by being open for co-operations with other
partner-organisations The European Library is able to fulfil its traditional role as
cultural institution and serve the community at large.
3. Virtual Communities
In essence, The European Library service is for anyone worldwide seeking national
library material. In practice it is, however, practically impossible to serve a global
audience via one and the same channel (for instance a website). It is far more
effective to identify users who are likely to value your offering, and target these
specific groups with specific services.
The European Library portal-site primarily targets librarians and members of the
academic community. User studies have clearly pointed out that these groups
appreciate most what makes The European Library offering (as presented via the
portal site) special: As the most comprehensive pan-European library service The
European Library provides a vast virtual collection of material from all disciplines
and offers visitors ease of access to European cultural and scientific resources. Key
terms often used in descriptions of The European Library: reliability, unique cultural
treasures and context-providers.10 To this list can be added the fact that it is the
best place to go to check if a particular item has been digitized or not.
Though the internet is definitely one of the strongest globalization mechanisms, the
question of whether user groups are defined more by interests (e.g. academic
subject communities) or by nationality or linguistic groupings is not an easy one to
8
The prototype will be launched November 20th 2008 by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for
Information Society and Media. Keep up to date via http://www.europeana.eu
9
Commission Recommendation of 24 August 2006 on the digitisation and online accessibility of
cultural material and digital preservation (2006/585/EC)
10
Interestingly “Libraries and museums evoke consistent, extraordinary public trust among diverse
adult users” is one of the key finding of ‘Interconnections: The IMLS National Study on the Use of
Libraries, Museums and the Internet”, Institute of Museum and Libraries Services in cooperation with
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jose-Marie Griffiths and Donald W. King (2008). The
findings are based on five surveys of 1.000 to 1.600 adults each that were conducted during 2006.
5

6. answer.11 Either way it goes without saying that culture remains a crucially important
factor in serving an international community. This is also expressed in how The
European Library is presented and how it is developing its services. Great
importance, for instance, is given to offering a multilingual service. At this point a
user can select the language of the interface. Several projects are aimed, however,
at expanding the range of services that are based on multilinguality.12
Image 3: Screenshots of Facebook Page, a website and blog illustrating the use of the Mini Library
The European Library is active in various web 2.0 environments from a Wordpress
blog to YouTube, MySpace up to various social community sites. The European
Library has not (yet) tried to create virtual places in or outside the portal where
academics, for instance, can meet and exchange ideas. Instead it aims to make its
services available within already existing communities. The ‘Mini-Library’, for
example, is a tool that is currently available both as a widget and as an application.
It looks and functions as a mini-version of the search box of The European Library.
Installers of the Mini Library can select specific collections, pre-set the language of
the interface and modify the layout of the search box. As the ‘Mini Library’ can
easily be embedded in any website or blog, it greatly increases access to, and ease
of use of, the offered content. The European Library is also analysing the value of its
presence within social community sites, such as Facebook. Currently, Facebook
registrants can implement a ‘Mini Library’ on their personal page. Given the great
11
For instance: Manuel Castells, The Information Age. Economy, Society and Culture - Vol. II: The
Power of Identity. Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell (2nd edition, 2004).
12
Projects such as TELMEMOR, EDLproject, TELplus, Multilingual Access to Subjects (MACS), Cross-
language Access to Catalogues And On-line libraries (CACAO), Cross-Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF)
6

7. number of ‘Faces’ that indeed makes use of this possibility, the Mini Library is a
great success.
By contrast, Europeana is creating virtual spaces in its own domain. Presented
features include “MyEuropeana” and “Communities”. Via the latter facility, people
can work on projects together or create interest groups around subjects.13 Many
issues are, however, still left to be resolved. For instance it still remains to be seen
if, and if so how, users may upload content, either in certified contexts or in specific
publication spaces.14
Target audiences - Europeana:
 General user: people that visit out of interest or looking for particular
information
 School students: major potential for Europeana, opening up easy access to
cultural content
 Teachers: enables them to find primary sources and create online course
materials
 University undergraduates: looking for certified information; want to
export information for courses or research work
 Graduate students, academics, scholars: want access to the largest
possible amount of authoritative content, to annotate and use at a detailed
level
 Professional users: experts in their domains - archivists, librarians,
curators; searching and verifying information
Application programming interfaces (APIs) represent a potentially rewarding area for
both Europeana and The European Library. Allowing institutional users and possibly
general users to build new applications on top of Europeana content and embedding
these in different platforms, would immensely expand the reach of Europeana. A
local museum somewhere in Germany, for instance, may make a European exhibition
on ships from the 18th century, using content of Europeana and putting it on the own
website.
4. Keeping up in a multicultural environment
To keep up with market developments it is necessary to react fast to changing user
requirements and to integrate new developments into the services (the ‘innovation’
success factor). We have described how The European Library and Europeana try to
act and react to the demands of targeted audiences.15 Here it is briefly explained
how The European Library cooperates with its local partners in targeting a
multicultural audience using the ‘act, measure and react’ approach.
13
‘Web 2.0 ideas enrich Europe's digital heritage’, Jonathan Purday, Research Information (Aug/Sept. 2008)
http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=185
14
For an overview of ‘pro’s and contra’s’ as these have been noted down during Europeana discussions on user
generated content please check: Report on User Requirements for Europeana - demoversion
15
‘Putting the shoe on the other foot’ - formulating user requirements for Europe’s cultural heritage
portals, Conference paper, ELAG 2008 - Rethinking the Library (April 2008, Wageningen, The
Netherlands)
7

8. Last year The European Library started to develop Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs).16 These indicators are meant to give insight into the performance of The
European Library against its business goals. At the same time they are intended to
increase the understanding of the market and its requirements.
The KPIs and web-statistics in general, are a key element in marketing The European
Library as these inform us whether or not marketing actions are cost-effective. In the
near future they will be integrated in a network-wide market information system
that is currently being built. This system is aimed at combining information input
with monitoring and review mechanisms.
Partners are requested to help the Office of The European Library to evaluate the
effectiveness of marketing activities and recommend modifications and
improvements to programmes. To this end, all partner libraries are asked to apply
the KPIs and support further development of them.
As The European Library is a collaborative network organization and it is strongly
believed that partner-libraries know their own audiences best, all partners are also
invited to help promote The European Library within their own country. In various
ways the central marketing department supports partners in performing this task,
from providing them with centrally-created templates to sending all kinds of
promotional material upon request. Partners are also asked to give their own touch
to particular actions. For instance in press releases they can add or – up to a certain
extent – modify the text according to their insights.
How The European Library responds to user needs may be illustrated by examples
relating to the portal, for instance the work being done to translate the portal
interface into the national languages represented throughout Europe. Logfile analysis
has clearly shown how much users appreciate this functionality.
Image 4: Screenshot of The European Library homepage – language functionality
16
Key Performance Indicators, an EDLproject report by Fleur Stigter (May 2007) You may also want to
check ….presentations at Bridging Worlds Conference.
8

9. As the members of the newly established Users Advisory Board come from many
different countries, it is expected that this board may play an important role in
optimizing the portal for an international audience.
Last but certainly not least, The European Library is looking to develop its
relationships across the international community of library professionals. It is hoped
that this community may further help develop The European Library according to the
needs of users coming from different parts of the world. As has hopefully become
clear, though targeting primarily a European academic community, our aim is to
continue to strengthen our service for a global audience and to promote the benefits
of the Library as a free resource for all library users.
5. Conclusions
Libraries are able to fulfil an important function but only if they behave proactively
and think and act according to the wishes of the user communities. Ideally a clearly
defined vision and a user-driven concept precede all product and service
development, certainly when it comes to working with or developing virtual
communities.
The ‘act, measure and (re)act’ approach helps The European Library network to keep
up to date with changing user demands and to connect with the many different
cultures represented in its international audience. At the same time The European
Library hopes to reach a broader range of user groups by participating in Europeana.
As APIs give the opportunity to deal successfully with different user groups in already
existing virtual places, both The European Library and Europeana are planning to
further explore this area. Indeed, along side multilingual search and opportunities to
add user-generated content APIs have been incorporated into new Europeana
proposals, which have been submitted to the European Commission under the last
funding call for eContentplus.
6. References
‘European Library sets up user advisory board’, Michele Perry, in: Information World
Review (7th April 2008) http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-
review/news/2213865/users-given-voice-european-3923010
‘Web 2.0 ideas enrich Europe's digital heritage’, Jonathan Purday, in: Research
Information (Aug/Sept. 2008)
http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=185
Manuel Castells, The Information Age. Economy, Society and Culture - Vol. II: The
Power of Identity. Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell (2nd edition, 2004)
‘Putting the shoe on the other foot’ - formulating user requirements for Europe’s
cultural heritage portals, Fleur Stigter, Conference paper, ELAG 2008 - Rethinking
the Library (April 2008, Wageningen, The Netherlands)
http://library.wur.nl/elag2008/presentations/fleur_stigter.pdf
9

10. Online Collaboration Between European National Libraries Since 1995 – Building
Towards a European Digital Library, Olaf D. Janssen, Conference paper SLA 2006
conference (June 2006, Baltimore, USA)
http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/organisation/press/documents/SLA2006F
ullPaper_Olaf_D_Janssen_20060430.pdf
Interconnections: The IMLS National Study on the Use of Libraries, Museums and the
Internet – Conclusions Summary, J. Griffiths and D.W. King, Institute of Museum and
Libraries Services in cooperation with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(2008)
http://www.interconnectionsreport.org/reports/ConclusionsSummaryFinalB.pdf
Recommendation by European Commission on the digitisation and online
accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (24 August 2006/585/EC)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006H0585:EN:HTML
Europeana Prototype 1 description, an EDLnet report by Catherine Lupovici and Julie
Verleyen (2008)
Key Performance Indicators, an EDLproject report by Fleur Stigter (May 2007 The
Hague)
10