The document presents the Europeana Data Model (EDM) and its importance in managing cultural heritage metadata, highlighting its capabilities and requirements for distinguishing between real objects and their digital representations. It discusses the collaborative nature of EDM's development and the engagement of various community experts to ensure compatibility and flexibility across different domains. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for improved data granularity, interlinking, and enrichment for enhanced interoperability and overall quality of metadata.

1. Europeana Data Model
Antoine Isaac
Scientific Coordinator, Europeana
American Art Collaborative LOD Meeting
Smithsonian American Art Museum, April 29, 2013

2. What Europeana gets (and makes available)
Descriptive
metadata
Link to digital
objects online

3. So far: ESE records
europeana:dataProvider
europeana:provider
europeana:isShownAt
europeana:isShownBy
europeana:object
europeana:rights with controlled values
(Public Domain, CC-BY, etc)
dc:contributor, dc:creator, dc:date, dc:format,
dc:identifier, dc:language, dc:publisher,
dc:relation, dc:source, dcterms:alternative,
dcterms:extent, dcterms:temporal,
dcterms:medium, dcterms:created,
dcterms:provenance, dcterms:issued,
dcterms:conformsTo, dcterms:hasFormat,
dcterms:isFormatOf, dcterms:hasVersion,
dcterms:isVersionOf, dcterms:hasPart,
dcterms:isPartOf, dcterms:isReferencedBy,
dcterms:references, dcterms:isReplacedBy,
dcterms:replaces dcterms:isRequiredBy,
dcterms:requires dcterms:tableOfContents
europeana:type

4. Issues
ESE is a flat model
 No links between cultural objects or between objects and context
entities (persons, places)
 just strings (with no language info)
Mixed data
 real object, digital representation, provider – all in one record
 A lot of mapping quality problems.
• E.g., dc:date should be a date related to the original object but is often the
date of digitisation

5. EDM Requirements
1. Distinguish the real object (painting, book) from its digital
representation
2. Distinguish the object from its metadata record
3. Allow multiple records for same object
containing potentially contradictory statements about an object
1. Support for objects that are composed of other objects
hierarchies
1. Be compatible with different levels of description
Generic/interoperable vs. specific/domain-centered
1. Flexible support for describing contextual resources, including
concepts
2. Re-use and extend elements from existing standards

6. A Collaborative Effort
Europeana v1.0 WP3
 Ca. 60 participants
“Fish tank” development
 Many presentations in the network and beyond
 (Evolving) specifications available since 2009
Cross-community development
 Involving library, archive and museum experts
http://europeanalabs.eu/wiki/WP1CommunityMeetingMuseums

7. A Collaborative Effort
EDM makes Europeana ready to ingest metadata that is closer to specific
community concerns
 But still mapped to common elements
Europeana & partners can develop EDM “profiles” upon which everyone
could build specific functionality
 Based on best practices from sector or domain level
EDM is consolidated with partners who re-use it
 Europeana providers, DPLA

8. EDM Classes

9. EDM Properties (excluding ESE)

10. General points
• All resources should have an identifier
• Most values can be either be a literal or a reference
• It is recommended to use xml:lang attributes on literals
• Use the most precise (sub) property available.
• Later, providers will be able to specialize to EDM
• Re-use elements from other vocabularies
• SKOS, Dublin Core, RDA, CIDOC-CRM (via mappings)

11. ore:Aggregation
(Identifier of aggregation)
edm:WebResource
(Identifier of web resource)
edm:ProvidedCHO
(Identifier of real object)
An aggregation with a provided
CHO and web resource(s)
The three core classes
edm:aggregatedCHO
edm:hasView

12. Properties for edm:Aggregation
Mandatory:
edm:aggregatedCHO
edm:dataProvider
edm:isShownBy or
edm:isShownAt
edm:provider
edm:rights
Optional:
edm:hasView
edm:object
dc:rights
edm:ugc
The aggregation represents the set of related resources about one real object
contributed by one provider. It carries the metadata that is about the whole set

13. edm:aggregation with metadata
Properties for the ore:Aggregation http://www.mimo-db.eu/UEDIN/214
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
edm:aggregatedCHO #UEDIN:214
edm:hasView http://www.mimo-db.eu/media/UEDIN/VIDEO/0032195v.mpg
edm:hasView http://www.mimo-db.eu/media/UEDIN/AUDIO/0032195s.mp3
edm:hasView http://www.mimo-db.eu/media/UEDIN/IMAGE/0032195c.jpg
edm: dataProvider University of Edinburgh
edm:Provider MIMO - Musical Instrument Museums Online
edm:rights http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
edm:isShownBy http://www.mimo-db.eu/media/UEDIN/IMAGE/0032195c.jpg
edm:object http://www.mimo-db.eu/media/UEDIN/IMAGE/0032195c.jpg

14. Properties for edm:ProvidedCHO
dc:contributor, dc:creator, dc:date, dc:format, dc:identifier, dc:language,
dc:publisher, dc:relation, dc:source, dcterms:alternative, dcterms:extent,
dcterms:temporal, dcterms:medium, dcterms:created, dcterms:provenance,
dcterms:issued, dcterms:conformsTo, dcterms:hasFormat,
dcterms:isFormatOf, dcterms:hasVersion, dcterms:isVersionOf,
dcterms:hasPart, dcterms:isPartOf, dcterms:isReferencedBy,
dcterms:references, dcterms:isReplacedBy, dcterms:replaces
dcterms:isRequiredBy, dcterms:requires dcterms:tableOfContents
edm:isNextInSequence
edm:isDerivativeOf
edm:currentLocation…
The ProvidedCHO is the cultural heritage object which is the subject of
the package of data that has been submitted to Europeana.

15. Example
Properties for the edm: ProvidedCHO: #UEDIN:24
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
dc:date Circa 1840
dc:description Technical description: Brass; ligature fitting on
bell section at joint; stockings on main slides.
with one coil, angled to face forwards. Repair
History: Main slide possibly not original (tenon of
slide section of joint is tapered, bell section joint
for cylindrical tenon)
dc:title Buccin trombone.Nominal pitch: B?
dc:type http://www.mimo-
db.eu/InstrumentsKeywords/4378
edm:type IMAGE

16. WebResource
One or more digital representations of the provided cultural heritage
object.
Properties:
dc:rights
edm:rights
dc:format
dcterms:isPartOf
edm:isNextInSequence
…

17. edm:WebResources with metadata
Properties for the edm:WebResource http://www.mimo-
db.eu/media/UEDIN/VIDEO/0032195v.mpg
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
edm:rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Properties for the edm:WebResource http://www.mimo-
db.eu/media/UEDIN/AUDIO/0032195s.mp3
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
edm:rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Properties for the edm:WebResource http://www.mimo-
db.eu/media/UEDIN/IMAGE/0032195c.jpg
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
edm:rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
NB: digital representations may have different rights
Could have format data etc.

18. Contextual resources
edm:Agent
foaf:name
skos:altLabel
rdaGr2:biographicalInformation
rdaGr2:dateOfBirth
…
skos:Concept
skos:prefLabel
skos:altLabel
skos:broader
skos:related
skos:definition….
edm:TimeSpan
skos:prefLabel
dcterms:isPartOf
edm:begin
edm:end
….
edm:Place
wgs84_pos:lat
wgs84_pos:long
skos:prefLabel
skos:note
dcterms:isPartOf….

19. Example - edm:Place and skos:Concept
Properties for skos:Concept http://www.mimo-db.eu/InstrumentsKeywords/4378
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
skos:PrefLabel xml:lang="en" Buccin
Properties for skos:Concept http://www.mimo-db.eu/HornbostelAndSachs/356
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
skos:PrefLabel xml:lang="en" 423.22 Labrosones with slides
Properties for edm:Place http://sws.geonames.org/3017382/
EDM properties Corresponding values in the original data
skos:PrefLabel xml:lang="en" France

20. Model for representing metadata
enrichments
Contextual resources from providers
Their thesauri, gazetteers, etc.
Enrichment (multilingual) by Europeana
Geonames, GEMET, dbPedia
Enrichment by third-parties?

21. Europeana
aggregation
Enriched metadata
v
Provider
aggregation
Multiple providers, multiple
aggregations

22. Take-home message
Not perfect, but making progress
Data granularity
Data interlinking and enriching
Re-use and interoperability
More at http://pro.europeana.eu/edm-documentation

23. Thank you
Antoine Isaac
aisaac@few.vu.nl