1) The document discusses the importance of semantic contextualization for Europeana to avoid becoming like the Tower of Babel and succumbing to misunderstanding. 2) It describes Europeana's goal of becoming a network that enables knowledge generation through semantically interlinking cultural objects across languages and domains. 3) The author argues that Europeana should focus on building connections through contextualization and semantic interoperability rather than becoming a purely political project, in order to fulfill its potential.

1. A European Tower of Babel? On the Importance of Semantic Contextualisation for Europeana. Prof. Dr. Stefan Gradmann Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / School of Library and Information Science [email_address]

3. Languages and Interpretation

4. Towards a Semantic Europeana

5. An Example

6. Data, Information, Knowledge, Thinking

7. On how not to end up as a European Tower of Babel

8. A Very Old Story: Genesis XI, 1-9

9. A very Old Story: Genesis XI, 1-9

10. A Very Old Story: Genesis XI, 1-9

11. A Very Old Story: Genesis XI, 1-9

12. After the End of the Very Old Story

13. And the Reason for the End of the Very Old Story

14. Re: the Reason for the End of the Very Old Story

16. The second loss of Paradise was a loss of semiological innocence.

17. From that moment on, things did not simply bear names anymore but were referenced by signs as part of complex significant systems: languages!

18. Likewise, communication turned into a controlled misunderstanding.

19. This also was the hour of birth of hermeneutics, the science of interpretation.

20. The fall of the tower of Babel triggered a long and ongoing quest for semantic interoperability.

21. Europeana is part of this quest.

22. Europeana Semantic Interoperability and Multilingual Issues

27. Linguistic interoperability is a political and a cultural asset.

28. The Interoperability Abstraction Layer Cake Concrete Abstract

30. Interaction with data providers “Aggregators and other content providers need to provide identifiers, metadata files, vocabularies in SKOS form, links to semantic nodes , licensing and rights information and access to the original digital objects.”

31. Terminology mapping “The work to turn this [collection of Europeana terminologies] in a 'European Ontology' and more specifically the mapping of these concept schemes cannot be done in the context of Europeana alone but must be made be part of the wider EC research agenda. However, Europeana will have to contain instruments that can be used to produce such mappings and to promote best practices. ” -> Europena.Connect WP1

32. Make Europeana “ a network of inter-operating object surrogates enabling semantics based object discovery and use .” All in http://tinyurl.com/EuropeanaSpecsD2-5

33. Europeana is not Yet Another Digital Libray

34. Contextualisation of Europeana Object Representations: the EDM

35. Document Objects, Metadata and Semantic Networks

38. PND and SWD (prototype)

39. Geonames

40. LCSH

41. …

42. New opportunities: Triple Sets and Reasoning (1)

43. Triple Sets and Reasoning (2)

44. Triple Sets and Reasoning (3) -> Potential of novel digital heuristics!

45. An Example (1)

46. An Example (2)

47. An Example (3)

48. An Example (4)

49. An Example (5)

50. An Example (6)

51. An Example (7) Adam & Eve ∞

52. Semantic Contextualisation: Data, Information, Knowledge and Thinking

59. Neither a huge information repository (even though building on many of them, again)!

60. High volume aggregation of digital representations of cultural artefacts together with rich contextualisation data and embedded in a Linked Open Data architecture.

61. Enabling knowledge generation …

62. … and maybe even speculative thinking

63. Back to Babel

66. Europeana has a strong political component being part of the European Commission's i2010 Lisbon Agenda

69. -> There definitely is a lot of 'Babel' inside Europeana …

70. … but that doesn't necessarily imply a Babel scenario for Europeana as a whole!

73. -> Build an profile based on contextualisation and semantic interoperability: make Europeana a knowledge generation machine!

74. Conclusion: from 'Connecting' to 'Thinking' Man acts as if he were the shaper and master of language, while it is language which remains mistress of man. When this relation of dominance is inverted, man succumbs to strange contrivances. Language then becomes a means of expression. (Martin Heidegger)

75. My Favourite Tower Thank you for your patience and attention!