European culture is a matter of unity and diversity. As far as cultural heritage is concerned -with language and artistic creation as one of the major dimensions of each serious cultural policy-, this balance of unity and diversity is one of the great challenges of the new European Union. The importance of cultural heritage has moved to the fore in many European countries, yet most of their policies remain strongly national and language-based. Since photography to a large extent escapes the restrictions of verbal language, it may become an important vector of the construction of European culture and the reinforcement of European citizenship. The problem with photography, however, is that contrary to more established fields such as painting, less attention is paid to the carrier of which conservation and dissemination raise serious difficulties, for instance the problem of establishing the meaning of a picture or that of reinserting it in the cultural context (not necessarily an artistic one) in which it belongs.

Digitization can offer concrete solutions to these problems, provided it is not just reduced to technical operations of digital storing of complete classic archives. Digitization should be an opportunity to reflect on new methodologies for selecting, storing, describing, analysing, and disseminating photographic heritage, and to include the audience, as it is: culturally and linguistically diverse in Europe, in its procedures and its basic philosophy.

E-learning provides the possibility to reach as many of the concerned stakeholders as possible. Furthermore e-learning is the ideal tool to transfer this strongly visual matter to the large public.

PHOTHEREL, a project for new forms of disseminating endangered photographic heritage, aims at becoming an example of best practice and best policy in the field.