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The purpose of this paper is to describe the construction of the prototype of Europeana.eu, the cross‐domain cultural heritage portal funded by the European Commission, to look at the political vision behind the project, and examine the user scenarios that informed the build, to detail Europeana's metadata schema and object model, and to give an overview of the new projects that will bring the prototype to full operational service.

As the project to build the prototype ends, this is a narrative of Europeana's genesis, development, launch, and an overview of the scope of future plans.

A cross‐domain, cross‐border cultural heritage site has been successfully created. A total of 4.5 million items across the range of image, video, text and sound formats have been integrated and user interest has proved higher than anticipated.

Key issues have been found to be metadata standards and quality. Usability/searchability of Europeana.eu is only as good as the metadata provided by content owners.

Greater standardisation of metadata across the cultural heritage domain will increase in importance so providers can deliver content to portals and aggregators. Metadata enhancement, both by content providers and by using automated processes, will likewise become a priority.

This is the on‐the‐record account of the building of Europe's digital library, archive and museum.