Europeana is a digital platform that aggregates over 30 million cultural heritage objects from various European institutions. It aims to make this content openly accessible online through its website, apps, and APIs. The Europeana Data Model was created to better structure metadata and link objects to related entities and multilingual descriptions. Europeana seeks to facilitate reuse of this content through its linked open data approach and by distinguishing between rights for metadata and digital objects. It also works on innovations like semantic search and annotation to help users discover and interact with the cultural heritage materials.

1. Europeana, more than data aggregation?
Antoine Isaac
Europeana
UvA Digital Heritage mini-symposium, Dec. 12, 2013

2. Europeana.eu, Europe’s cultural heritage portal
30M objects from 2,200 galleries, museums, archives and libraries
Text
Video
Image
Sound
3D

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

4. Who submits data to Europeana?
Domain Aggregators
National initiatives
Libraries
National Aggregators
e.g.
Culture
Grid,
Culture.fr
e.g. The
European
Library
Regional Aggregators
Archives
e.g. APEX
Audiovisual
collections
e.g. EUScreen,
European Film
Gateway
Thematic collections
e.g. Musées
Lausannois
e.g. Judaica Europeana,
Europeana Fashion

5. Distributing Europeana content
Europeana aims to provide content in the users’ workflow –
where they want it, when they want it.
 Web portal, project portals/exhibitions, social media, app
 Others using Europeana data independently
Unique point of access,
with higher visibility

6. Europeana as infrastructure open for re-use
Available via




API
Search widgets
Semantic mark-up (schema.org) on portal
Linked Open Data
Providing publication services that smaller institutions
may not be able to develop

7. http://agris.fao.org/openagris/

8. http://www.digibis.com/dpla-europeana/

9. Trying to reach new audiences
Digital humanities
Creative industries
Education
…

10. Facilitating re-use on the legal side
 Distinguishing two levels of rights
Metadata (descriptive object information)
CC
Content (digital objects on the site of the provider)
Different
options

11. Rights Statements for content
Open
Not open – but
clear
Not open –
and not so
clear
 The framework is in continuous improvement!

12. Facilitating re-use on the technical side
R&D and innovation

13. Linked Open Data
http://data.europeana.eu

14. Data modeling
 Creating a new Europeana Data Model
http://pro.europeana.eu/edm-documentation

15. Prior to EDM: ESE records
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
europeana:dataProvider
europeana:provider
europeana:isShownAt
europeana:isShownBy
europeana:object
europeana:rights
 Flat model, no links e.g. between objects and context
entities (persons, places)
 Data on real object and digital content mixed in one
record
 A lot of mapping quality problems

16. EDM: an example

17. Enhanced descriptive metadata

18. Connecting to multilingual data

19. Connecting to multilingual data
<skos:Concept rdf:about="http://www.mimo-db.eu/InstrumentsKeywords/2251">
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="">Harpsichord</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="de">Cembalo</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="sv">Cembalo</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="fr">Clavecin</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="it">Clavicembalo</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="en">Harpsichord</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:prefLabel xml:lang="nl">Klavecimbel</skos:prefLabel>
<skos:broader>
<skos:Concept rdf:about="http://www.mimo-db.eu/InstrumentsKeywords/2239">
<skos:prefLabel>Harpsichords</skos:prefLabel>
</skos:Concept>
</skos:broader>
</skos:Concept>

20. Various Types of Contextual Resources
<gn:Feature rdf:about="http://sws.geonames.org/3176959/">
<gn:name>Florence</gn:name>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="ko"> 피렌체 </gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="ja"> フィレンツェ </gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="th">ฟลอเรนซ์</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="bo">ཧྥུལོརོ་ཟིུཡ།</gn:alternateName>
་ ་ ན འ་
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="cy">Fflorens</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="bs">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="hbs">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="hr">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="sq">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="pl">Firence</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="sl">Firence</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="lij">Firense</gn:alternateName>
<gn:population>371517</gn:population>
<wgs84_pos:lat>43.76667</wgs84_pos:lat>
<wgs84_pos:long>11.25</wgs84_pos:long>

21. Contextual Resources – Places
<gn:Feature rdf:about="http://sws.geonames.org/3176959/">
<gn:name>Florence</gn:name>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="ko"> 피렌체 </gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="ja"> フィレンツェ </gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="th">ฟลอเรนซ์</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="bo">ཧྥུལོརོ་ཟིུཡ།</gn:alternateName>
་ ་ ན འ་
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="cy">Fflorens</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="bs">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="hbs">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="hr">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="sq">Firenca</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="pl">Firence</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="sl">Firence</gn:alternateName>
<gn:alternateName xml:lang="lij">Firense</gn:alternateName>
<gn:population>371517</gn:population>
<wgs84_pos:lat>43.76667</wgs84_pos:lat>
<wgs84_pos:long>11.25</wgs84_pos:long>

22. EDM is ready for metadata enrichment
 Re-using third-party sources
• GEMET, GeoNames, DBpedia
 Multilingual + semantic features
 By providers or Europeana
• Hopefully in collaboration!

23. Benefiting from existing R&D
Re-using existing stuff: OAI-ORE, Dublin Core, SKOS…
EuropeanaTech
community
EDM is cross-community development involving library,
archive and museum experts, plus academic partners
Not a strict standard, rather a common ground…

24. Innovation - Searching
http://eculture.cs.vu.nl/europeana/ query : “Dieppe”

25. Innovation - annotating
Pundit @ DM2E project http://dm2e.eu

26. Europeana’s vision and mission
 We believe in making cultural heritage openly
accessible in a digital way, to promote the
exchange of ideas and information.
 We want to be a catalyst for change in the world of
cultural heritage.
 Aggregation is more than just gathering data!

27. Useful links
 Europeana portal europeana.eu
 Europeana Professional pro.europeana.eu
 EuropeanaTech community pro.europeana.eu/europeanatech
 Europeana Data Model documentation
pro.europeana.eu/edm-documentation
 Europeana Twitter @EuropeanaEU
 EuropeanaTech Twitter @EuropeanaTech

28. Thank you
- and tweet #AllezCulture !
Antoine Isaac
aisaac@few.vu.nl
@EuropeanaTech