Users Get Their Say Developing the European Library

17 March 2008

The Hague (The Netherlands) - The European Library is pleased to announce the formation of its Users Advisory Board. The members of the Board are drawn from across the international library and academic community. Trying to meet user demands better, their advice will help shape the development and strategy of The European Library portal.

The Board will provide input and advice on matters of usability in two ways. It will influence the web-design and functionalities of the portal. The Board will also keep The European Library network informed about the ways in which user needs are evolving at the different research levels.

"It is significant that so many leading librarians, academics and web2.0 experts have accepted our invitation to join the Advisory Board", said Lynne Brindley, Chair of the Executive Group of The European Library. "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."

Members of The European Library Users Advisory Board include:

Peter Suber	SPARC and Earlham College	United States
Mathias Schindler	Student and member of the board of Wikipedia Germany	Germany
Zinaida Manžuch	Vilnius University	Lithuania
Margus Lääne	State Archive	Estonia
Apurba Kundu	University of Bradford	United kingdom
Marjeta Gostincar Cerar	Institute for Ethnic Studies	Slovenia
Michael Fingerhut	Multimedia Library and Engineering Bureau	France
Max Dohle	Copywriter	The Netherlands
Mel Collier	Catholic University of Leuven	Belgium

The inaugural meeting of the Users Advisory Board will take place during a meeting of national libraries on May 20th 2008. The agenda includes discussions related to the next site releases and additional user requirements relating to developments outside the portal, for instance blogs, Facebook, and other web2.0 environments.

Louise Edwards, General Manager of The European Library, said "We are very much looking forward to this first meeting of the Users Advisory Board. It will be very interesting to see what will come out of their discussions, and to learn even more about the user perspective."

The Users Advisory Board will have its own virtual discussion space. It will hold physical meetings when needed. The members of the Board will serve for two years initially.

Notes for Editors:

www.TheEuropeanLibrary.org is a service of the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL) offering free, item level, access to the combined resources, books, magazines, journals, manuscripts, sound and video archives, both digital and non-digital, from 33 of the 47 national libraries of Europe. Europeana – formerly called European Digital Library or EDL – will be build upon the infrastructure of The European Library.