German Digital Library

Germany to follow France, will not stand idly by while private corporations digitize its cultural heritage:

Germany now has a plan to challenge Google at its own game.  In December, the government announced the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (DDB) — the German Digital Library — a plan to connect the databases of 30,000 German cultural and academic organizations and create an Internet portal that would be available to all German citizens.

This new digital library will contain everything from books and documents, to paintings, film and music recordings. In addition, it will be linked to Europeana, a similar project launched in 2008 by the European Union (that still contains little content and remains difficult to access), and to libreka!, the German e-book portal run by the MVB, a subsidiary of the Boersenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (the German Publishers and Booksellers Association). SOURCE