Digitisation initiatives began due to long term preservation concerns. Questions concerning their impact have now come to the fore: “The measurable outcomes arising from the existence of a digital resource that demonstrate a change in the life or life opportunities of the community for which the resource is intended.” Jewish and Israeli digital resources can now be enhanced with relevant encyclopedias and controlled vocabularies through a LOD approach. The resulting knowledge grid can help bridge the gap between the digital resources and the knowledge of the intended communities of users. It will expand their application in narratives, scholarly research, higher education, K12, cultural tourism, genealogy and more.

1. Europeana and LOD: Enhancing Jewish and
Israeli Heritage Digital Contents
EVA/Minerva Conference at Harvard University
April, 13-14 2015 Judaica Division , Harvard University Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dov Winer
Scientific Manager, Judaica Europeana
Coordinator, MINERVA Israel Cultural Heritage Digitisation Forum

2. Abstract:
Digitisation initiatives began due to long term preservation concerns.
Questions concerning their impact have now come to the fore: “The
measurable outcomes arising from the existence of a digital resource that
demonstrate a change in the life or life opportunities of the community for
which the resource is intended.” Jewish and Israeli digital resources can now
be enhanced with relevant encyclopedias and controlled vocabularies through
a LOD approach. The resulting knowledge grid can help bridge the gap
between the digital resources and the knowledge of the intended communities
of users. It will expand their application in narratives, scholarly research,
higher education, K12, cultural tourism, genealogy and more.

3. 50 Years of Harvard Judaica

4.  Digital Contents: Israeli and Jewish
 The Impact of digitised contents
 Some examples of high impact initiatives
 Common Data Model for Content Description
 Judaica Linked Data: providing context to Jewish Digitised
Contents a possible Jewish Knowledge Grid.
Outline

5. Digitised Contents

6. Judaica Europeana Partners

7. ~millions+
digital cultural
objects

8. Jewish Digitised Content

9. Jewish Digitised Content

10. Jewish Digitised Content

20. Impact

21. Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University
Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at
Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

22. Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University
Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at
Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

23. Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University
Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at
Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

24. Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University
Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at
Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

25. Examples of Digital Impact

33. Common Data Model for
Content Description

34. Common Data Model

35. Outline

41. ”

43. Judaica Linked Data

44. Who? What? When? Where?
Controlled vocabularies: hubs of
Jewish Knowledge in the
Structured Web

46. Jewish encyclopedias: CONTEXT
Encyclopedia Judaica
Encyclopedia of Russian Jewry
http://www.rujen.ru/
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/
Rav Zeev Vagner
Josh Kopelman

51. Establishing a Jewish Knowledge Grid
Joint project:
 Named Entity Recognition in the text of the articles in the journals of the
Jewish Studies collection of JSTOR
 Names of persons, organizations, locations, expressions of times, events
 Linking the names to the entries in relevant vocabularies and
Encyclopedias
 Linking back the entries in the Encyclopedias and vocabularies to
relevant articles in JSTOR Jewish Studies journals.

56. MISSING:
Yad Vashem Jewish Place Names
VIAF National Library of Israel
IMAGINE from the Israel Museum
Jerusalem
Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic
World Online (BRILL)
Encyclopedia Judaica Online (GALE)

57. Judaica Europeana Vocabularies
Who?
What?
When?
Where?

58. Thank you!
dov.winer@gmail.com