The new European digital library Europeana proved to be so popular with 10 million hits per hour that it crashed within 24 hours of going live, according to the BBC report.
According to their home page, they hope to be back by mid-December.
In the meantime you can get a sneak preview from here.
I find it ironic that in the midst of news stories about the closure of both school and public libraries in the UK there is still a great deal of demand for library material from potential customers.