Treasures from Europe's National Libraries

The Conference of European National Librarians is proud to present a new virtual exhibition with descriptions and images of treasures from all over Europe, going back as far as the 8th century. The national libraries have selected some of the most stunning artefacts in their collections, like rare and precious books, illuminated manuscripts, bookbindings, drawings, prints and decorated papers. The treasures include the Gutenberg Bible, the Koran in silk, the famous Codex Gigas and work from Frdric Chopin, Jan Amos Komensk, W.A. Mozart, Fernando Pessoa, Rembrandt and many others. Together, these treasures are a small but impressive representation of European cultural heritage.

The exhibition has been designed in such a way, that the treasures can be browsed in various ways. It is possible to look at the treasures from a particular country, but they can also be found according to their format, their content or their creator, independent of their present location. A chonological index makes it possible to view these European cultural highlights from century to century. Short descriptions have been added to provide essential information about the treasures, their creators and their provenance.

This virtual exhibition has an open ending. The first version of 'Treasures from Europe's National Libraries' includes about a hundred treasures from 24 national libraries of Europe. The exhibition is incorporated in 'Gabriel, Gateway to Europe's National Libraries', the WWW-service of the Conference of European National Librarians. In total 39 national libraries participate in Gabriel, and more treasures from all libraries will be added soon. The exhibition was created and designed by Richelle van den Dungen Gronovius at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the national library of the Netherlands.

'Treasures from Europe's National Libraries' is available at 5 servers across Europe:

DE, Frankfurt - http://www.ddb.de:80/gabriel/treasures/entree.html
NL, Den Haag - http://www.konbib.nl/gabriel/treasures/entree.html
SI, Ljubljana - http://nuk.uni-lj.si/gabriel/treasures/entree.html
UK, London - http://www.bl.uk/gabriel/treasures/entree.html

I hope you will enjoy reading about some of the most precious items in our libraries.

Klaus-Dieter Lehmann
Chairman of the Gabriel Board