Every day, more and more websites are offering free books to read online, but rarely do they feel like true substitutes for real-world libraries. The prestigious Massachusetts prep school Cushing Academy begs to differ, however.

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After 16 months in the making, the multinational online digital library Europeana finally opened to the public on November 20. The only problem is that demand was so high — 10 million hits per hour — the site crashed, and as of 4:58 PM EST on November 21, it remains down. If one were to access the site, one would (presumably) discover 2 million digital objects, ranging from books to films to photos, sound recordings, paintings, maps, newspapers and more. The wealth of material was culled from European museums, libraries and various archives and collections and is currently limited to public domain content, although that could soon change, given the immediate popularity and the site’s goal to reach a whopping 6 million items by 2010.