It seems popularity can be a headache.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081120-eu-opens-digital-library-to-public-with-over-2-million-works.htmlThe European Union has finally opened its digital online library, Europeana, to the public, allowing users everywhere free access to the rich archives of EU's 27 member states. The library includes more than 2 million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archival documents, paintings, and films from national libraries and cultural institutions, all of which have been digitally encoded and uploaded to Europeana. And that's just the beginning; the EU plans to continue adding content over the next several years.
Europeana mainly offers content that is public domain, which should allow it to avoid the same type of copyright issues that Google faced when trying to let users browse works online.
The site has closed down until december due to the massive 10M hits overwelming the server, upgrades are underway to deal with demand . This is something worth the wait though
