Presentation about Europeana made at the SHIPWHER (http://www.muinas.ee/shipwher-1 ) project's final seminar. It's a pretty general introduction to Europeana but with some focus on how Europeana could become a more useful service for maritime archaeologists and historians.

1. Challenges and opportunities of
aggregating multiple databases in
Europeana
SHIPWHER final seminar, 2013-02-13

2. This is me
Hi,
I’m David Haskiya and I’m the Product
Developer at Europeana.
So what does that mean? It means that I
translate between GLAM-speak and
Development speak to make sure our web
sites and other technical tools deliver value to
our users. I work mostly with user research
and product design. Before doing this for
Europeana I did the same for the National
Heritage Board in Sweden (among others).
In a former life I was actually an
archaeologist!
/David
PS. GLAM=Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. DS.

3. What I hope you’ll be able to take away
Some basic info about Europeana
The opportunity and challenge of
building a multinational,
multidisciplinary, multilingual database
What Europeana can do for you and
your organisation

4. What is Europeana?

5. Europe’s cultural heritage portal
 26m records from 2,200
European galleries,
museums, archives and
libraries
 Books, newspapers,
journals, letters, diaries,
archival papers...
 Paintings, maps,
drawings, photographs…
 Music, spoken word,
radio broadcasts…
 Film, newsreels,
television…
 Curated exhibitions
 31 languages

6. What types of data does Europeana hold?
Texts Images Video Sound 3D

7. What makes up a Europeana record?
Thumbnail/preview
Metadata
Link to digital
objects online

8. Europeana’s vision and mission
 Europeana is a catalyst for change in the world of
cultural heritage.
 Our mission: The Europeana Foundation and its Network
create new ways for people to engage with their cultural
history, whether it’s for work, learning or pleasure.
 Our vision: We believe in making cultural heritage openly
accessible in a digital way, to promote the exchange of ideas
and information. This helps us all to understand our cultural
diversity better and contributes to a thriving knowledge
economy.
What I work with!

9. Europeana, a network of GLAMs
 Executive committee
• Currently 8 members
 Board of participants
• 20 organisations plus
6 elected Network Officers
 Europeana Network
• 532 members elect
the 6 Network Officers
 Europeana Office
• ~40 members of staff based in
The Hague, the UK and Greece
 Over a thousand people working on Europeana-related
projects, activities and Task Forces across Europe

10. Opportunities and challenges

11. A tale of trade, war and shipwreck
The Eendracht of Amsterdam
I’ll call her Unity to make things easier for
me
One fluyt out of the thousands built!
Een fluitschip, Dirke Everson Lons, courtesy of Rijksmuseum

12. Amsterdam 1661
The fluyt Unity, built in 1661

13. Bergen
Gothenburg Tallin
Stockholm
Copenhagen
Newcastle
Danzig
Bordeaux
Some of her ports of call

14. X Shipwrecked in1689
Shipwrecked off Öland in 1689

15. Where can the traces of Unity be found?
In how many libraries, archives and
museums would she have left her
traces?
In how many countries?
In how many languages?
What terms would have been used to
describe her in contemporary
sources?
Which terms a user use to to search
for her today?
Een fluitschip, Dirke Everson Lons, courtesy of Rijksmuseum

16. The role of Europeana: Unity?
Multinational, all European countries
Cross-domain
Libraries
Archives
Museums
Multilingual, thesauri and translations
One searchable access point re-directing
the user to multiple orginal sources

17. Challenge: That’s really difficult!
Coverage
Not all GLAMs are Europeana
members (yet!)
Only a small proportion digitised
Quality
Lack of multi-lingual thesauri make
discovery difficult
Lack of true concepts and entities
Technology
Semantic search beyond the keyword
match
Hercules draagt de zuilen by Heinrich Aldegrever, courtsesy of Rijksmuseum

18. Challenge: Language&Terminologies
Vaixell, Loď, Schiff, Ship, Buque,
Laiva, Navire, Hajó, Nave, Schip
(transportmiddel), Skip, Statek
wodny, Navio, Судно, Skepp
(fartyg)
Translations
Synonyms Skepp, Fartyg, Farkost…
Homonyms
Skepp (arkitektur), Skepp (fartyg),
• In the same language
Flöjt (skepp), Flöjt (instrument)
• Across languages
Spelling variations Skepp, Skep, Skjepp…
Changes in meanings over
time

19. How can we overcome those challenges?
Advert for Player’s Navy Cut Cigarettes, © British Library
Become a player!

20. What can Europeana do for me (what
can you do for Europeana?)?

21. How does Europeana get its content?
 Through its aggregation structure, Europeana represents 2,200
data providers across Europe
 From 150 Aggregators
• National, Domain and Thematic
• More efficient than working with every individual content provider
 End-user generated content
• Crowd-sourcing projects such as Europeana 1914-1918 and
Europeana 1989

22. Aggregation
National Aggregators Vertical Aggregators
National Aggregators
Museums
Archives Regional Aggregators MLAs
Libraries Dark Aggregators
MLAs
Film Archives
MLAs

23. What Europeana can do for you (and what
we ask in return)
What we offer What we ask
Access the EU funding streams Take active part in projects
Access the expertise of other Share your expertise with other
Network members Network members
Get more visitors to your Provide your collections to
collections via our portal and Europeana
API Allow others to reuse your
Use our API to offer your collection metadata via the API
website visitors richer content Provide your collections to
Use the Europeana API as your Europeana (at star pupil level)
API

24. A maritime archaeology/history aggregator?
Domain expertise
Curation and digitisation of content
Multi-lingual terminologies
Network building
Build partnerships across Europe
Aggregate
Pool your collections
Provide the to Europeana
This would make the search for Unity
possible!

25. Thank you for your attention!
Questions?

26. Find us and find out about us
 Europeana portal europeana.eu
• New portal preview http://preview.europeana.eu
 Europeana Exhibitions http://exhibitions.europeana.eu
 Europeana 1914-1918 europeana1914-1918.eu
 Europeana blog blog.europeana.eu/
 Europeana Professional pro.europeana.eu
• Professional blog pro.europeana.eu/blog
 On Facebook facebook.com/Europeana
 On Twitter twitter.com/EuropeanaEU
 On Pinterest pinterest.com/europeana/
 On Google+ plus.google.com/115619270851872228337/posts
 On Linked In linkedin.com/groups/Europeana-134927/about