[Summary]
Gabriel -- an acronym for "Gateway and Bridge to Europe's National
Libraries" -- was launched as a common portal giving access to the
internet services of participating libraries. The Gabriel project was
conceived during the 1994 CENL (Conference of European National
Librarians) meeting in Oslo, Norway, as an common electronic board with
updates about ongoing internet projects. Another meeting took place in
March 1995 with representatives from the national libraries in the
Netherlands, United Kingdom and Finland, who launched a pilot project
and were joined then by the national libraries in Germany, France and
Poland. A first Gabriel website was launched in September 1995. During
the 1996 CENL meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, Gabriel became an official
CENL website, with a new trilingual (English, French, German) portal
launched in January 1997.
***
Gabriel -- an acronym for "Gateway and Bridge to Europe's National
Libraries -- was launched in January 1997 as a common portal giving
access to the internet services of the participating libraries.
As stated on its website: "Gabriel also recalls Gabriel Naudé, whose
'Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque' (Paris, 1627) is one of the
earliest theoretical works about libraries in any European language and
provides a blueprint for the great modern research library. The name
Gabriel is common to many European languages and is derived from the
Old Testament, where Gabriel appears as one of the archangels or
heavenly messengers. He also appears in a similar role in the New
Testament and the Qu'ran."
In 1998, Gabriel offered links to the internet services of 38
participating national libraries (Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City). These links
led to OPACs (Open Public Access Catalogs), national bibliographies,
national union catalogs, indexes for periodicals, web servers and
gophers, with a section for common European projects.
How did Gabriel begin? During the 1994 CENL annual meeting in Oslo,
Norway, it was suggested that national libraries should set up a common
electronic board with updates about their ongoing internet projects.
Representatives from the national libraries in the Netherlands
(Koninklijke Bibliotheek), United Kingdom (British Library) and Finland
(Helsinki University Library) met in March 1995 in The Hague,
Netherlands, to launch the pilot Gabriel project. They were joined then
by the national libraries in Germany (Deutsche Bibliothek), France
(Bibliothèque Nationale de France) and Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa).
Gabriel would describe their services and collections, while seeking to
attract other national libraries into the project.
The original Gabriel website was launched in September 1995. It was
maintained by the British Library Network Services and mirrored on the
servers of the national libraries in the Netherlands and Finland. In
November 1995, other national libraries were invited to submit entries
describing their services and collections, after they launched their
own websites and online catalogs. The number of participating libraries
expanded.
During the 1996 CENL annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, it was decided
that Gabriel would become an official CENL website in January 1997.
The new trilingual (English, French, German) Gabriel portal was
maintained by the national library in the Netherlands (Koninklijke
Bibliotheek), and mirrored on the servers of four other national
libraries, in United Kingdom, Finland, Germany and Slovenia.
What about public libraries? According to “Internet and the Library
Sphere”, a document available on the website of the European
Commission, 1,000 public libraries from 26 European countries had their
own websites in December 1998. The websites ranged from one webpage
with a postal address and opening hours to a full website with access
to the library's OPAC.
The leading countries were Finland (247 libraries), Sweden (132
libraries), United Kingdom (112 libraries), Denmark (107 libraries),
Germany (102 libraries), Netherlands (72 libraries), Lithuania (51
libraries), Spain (56 libraries) and Norway (45 libraries). Russia had
a common website for 26 public reference libraries. Newcomers were the
Czech Republic (29 libraries) and Portugal (3 libraries).
As for Gabriel’s fate, the portal merged in summer 2005 with the
European Library's website (created by CENL in January 2004) to offer a
common portal for the 43 European national libraries. Europeana, the
European digital library, was launched three years later, in November
2008, with two million documents. Europeana offered 6 million documents
in March 2010, and 10 million documents on a revamped website in
September 2010.