1. local content in a Europeana cloud
Rob Davies,
MDR Partners, Project Manager

2. • Drive European business and government productivity via
cloud computing
• Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe
European Commission Communication, September 2012
• “Cloud computing is a game-changer for our economy.
Without EU action, we will stay stuck in national fortresses
and miss out on billions in economic gains. We must achieve
critical mass and a single set of rules across Europe. We must
tackle the perceived risks of cloud computing head-on.”
Vice-President Neelie Kroes
Digital Agenda:
cloud computing strategy, 2012

3. • Agility
• API
• Reduced cost
• Device and location independence
• Virtualisation
• Reliability
• Scalability and elasticity
• Performance
• Security
• Maintenance
Benefits claimed
for cloud computing

4. • Build on success of Europeana Local and CARARE
Best Practice Networks (30% of content in
Europeana).
– 4 million + new items.
• Cloud-based approach to make it easier for
small/medium institutions to make good quality
metadata and content available to Europeana;
• Bring together local history and heritage resources
which are currently unevenly represented in the
Europeana ‘ecosystem’,
• More coherent views of content relating to a given
locality;
Main goals of LoCloud

5. 1. Scientific coordinator (National Archive, Norway) and a
project manager (MDR)
2. Strong group of technical partners, already important
contributors to development of Europeana, including AIT,
Athena RC, AVINET, IPCHS, NTUA and PSNC.
3. National and regional aggregation services or content
providers who will act as pilot implementers of the cloud
services; coordinate and disseminate at national level.
4. Partners with specific expertise in key aspects such as
vocabularies.
• All EU Member States represented (excluding Finland,
Luxembourg and Malta) plus Iceland, Norway, Serbia and
Turkey.
• Start date: 1 March 2013
Consortium etc

6. • Explore and test the potential of cloud computing for
aggregation, enrichment and re-use, with a special focus on
geographic location (geocoding, historic place names).
• ‘Default’ aggregation infrastructure in the cloud for smaller
content holders
• Build on MINT-MORE combination used in CARARE (EDM)
• Lightweight digital library
• Experiment with alternative ingestion methods
• Hospitable to new content providers
• House museums, ‘private content holders’, unaggregated l
content from small archives
• Establish guidance, training and support facilities, built
around the LoCloud aggregation service.
Infrastructure

7. • Metadata editing
• Preservation services
• Rights management
• Enrichment services
• Spatial
• Thematic
• Digital resources management
Enhanced aggregator services

8. • Provide cloud-based software services to enable more
discoverable and interoperable content;
– geolocation enrichment tools
– metadata enrichment (NLP – English + Spanish)
– multilingual vocabularies for local history
– historic place-names ‘gazetteer’
– Wikimedia and crowdsourcing
• Cloud-based testlab: content provider involvement
Software as a service (SaaS)

10. Workpackage structure
Briefing, action planning in each country; state
of the art in relevant cloud infrastructures;
content and metadata analysis; requirements
analysis
WP 1
Planning, preparation and requirements
Specify, modify, test, implement core infrastructure components:
MINT, MoRe, Lightweight digital library – all build on existing work
WP 2
Design and implementation of aggregation infrastructure

11. Workpackages
Collaborative cloud-based testlab, involving partners and
users; develop and implement a suite of SaaS: geolocation
enrichment; metadata enrichment; multilingual
vocabularies; historic place-names; Wikimedia and
crowdsourcing
WP 3
Micro services for small and medium institutions
Regional training workshops, video, online course;
documentation and help desk; support portal – centre
of expertise; service sustainability planning with Europeana
WP 4
Enabling and supporting small and medium institutions

12. Workpackages
Group of inter-related evaluation
activities: infrastructure, metadata and
content; impact on institutions and end
users; Recommendations
WP 5
Evaluation and impact assessment
Website and social media; national
and international conferences and
events; competition among Europe’s
regions; sustainability planning; work
with aggregators
WP 6
Dissemination and exploitation
Coordination with Europeana Cloud
developments
WP 7
Management and coordination

13. • Cloud based support architecture for small
institutions and their aggregators
• Support national and domain aggregators, ‘default’
aggregator where needed
• Continue to build services
• Extend proven benefits to the Europeana ecosystem
as a whole
• Move toward distributed digital curation and higher
data quality
Future directions

14. Thank you
rob.davies@mdrpartners.com