Challenges and opportunities of aggregating multiple databases in

Europeana

SHIPWHER final seminar, 2013-02-13

This is me

Hi,

I’m David Haskiya and I’m the Product Developer at Europeana.

So what does that mean? It means that I translate between GLAM-speak and Development speak to make sure our web sites and other technical tools deliver value to our users. I work mostly with user research and product design. Before doing this for Europeana I did the same for the National Heritage Board in Sweden (among others).

In a former life I was actually an archaeologist!

/David

PS. GLAM=Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. DS.

What I hope you’ll be able to take away

Some basic info about Europeana

The opportunity and challenge of building a multinational, multidisciplinary, multilingual database

What Europeana can do for you and your organisation

What is Europeana?

26m records from 2,200 European galleries, museums, archives and libraries

Books, newspapers, journals, letters, diaries, archival papers...

Paintings, maps, drawings, photographs…

Music, spoken word, radio broadcasts…

Film, newsreels, television…

Curated exhibitions

31 languages

Europe’s cultural heritage portal

What types of data does Europeana hold?

Texts Images Video Sound 3D

What makes up a Europeana record?

Thumbnail/preview

Metadata

Link to digital objects online

Europeana’s vision and mission

Europeana is a catalyst for change in the world of cultural heritage.

Our mission: The Europeana Foundation and its Network create new ways for people to engage with their cultural history, whether it’s for work, learning or pleasure.

Our vision: We believe in making cultural heritage openly accessible in a digital way, to promote the exchange of ideas and information. This helps us all to understand our cultural diversity better and contributes to a thriving knowledge economy.

What I work with!

Executive committee• Currently 8 members

Board of participants• 20 organisations plus

6 elected Network Officers

Europeana Network• 532 members elect

the 6 Network Officers

Europeana Office• ~40 members of staff based in

The Hague, the UK and Greece

Over a thousand people working on Europeana-related projects, activities and Task Forces across Europe

Europeana, a network of GLAMs

Opportunities and challenges

A tale of trade, war and shipwreck

The Eendracht of Amsterdam

I’ll call her Unity to make things easier for me

One fluyt out of the thousands built!

Een fluitschip, Dirke Everson Lons, courtesy of Rijksmuseum

The fluyt Unity, built in 1661

Amsterdam 1661

Some of her ports of call

Newcastle

Bordeaux

Bergen

Copenhagen

Gothenburg

Danzig

Tallin

Stockholm

Shipwrecked off Öland in 1689

X Shipwrecked in1689

Where can the traces of Unity be found?

In how many libraries, archives and museums would she have left her traces?

In how many countries?

In how many languages?

What terms would have been used to describe her in contemporary sources?

Which terms a user use to to search for her today?

Een fluitschip, Dirke Everson Lons, courtesy of Rijksmuseum

The role of Europeana: Unity?

Multinational, all European countries

Cross-domain

Libraries

Archives

Museums

Multilingual, thesauri and translations

One searchable access point re-directing the user to multiple orginal sources

Challenge: That’s really difficult!

Coverage

Not all GLAMs are Europeana members (yet!)

Only a small proportion digitised

Quality

Lack of multi-lingual thesauri make discovery difficult

Lack of true concepts and entities

Technology

Semantic search beyond the keyword match

Hercules draagt de zuilen by Heinrich Aldegrever, courtsesy of Rijksmuseum

Challenge: Language&Terminologies

Translations

Synonyms

Homonyms

• In the same language

• Across languages

Spelling variations

Changes in meanings over time

Vaixell, Loď, Schiff, Ship, Buque, Laiva, Navire, Hajó, Nave, Schip (transportmiddel), Skip, Statek wodny, Navio, Судно, Skepp (fartyg)

Skepp (arkitektur), Skepp (fartyg), Flöjt (skepp), Flöjt (instrument)

Skepp, Fartyg, Farkost…

Skepp, Skep, Skjepp…

How can we overcome those challenges?

Advert for Player’s Navy Cut Cigarettes, © British Library

Become a player!

What can Europeana do for me (what can you do for Europeana?)?

How does Europeana get its content?

Through its aggregation structure, Europeana represents 2,200 data providers across Europe

From 150 Aggregators

• National, Domain and Thematic

• More efficient than working with every individual content provider

End-user generated content

• Crowd-sourcing projects such as Europeana 1914-1918 and Europeana 1989

Aggregation

National Aggregators Vertical Aggregators

MuseumsNational Aggregators

Regional AggregatorsArchives

Libraries

MLAs

MLAs

MLAs

Film Archives

Dark Aggregators

What Europeana can do for you (and what we ask in return)

Access the EU funding streams

Access the expertise of other Network members

Get more visitors to your collections via our portal and API

Use our API to offer your website visitors richer content

Use the Europeana API as your API

Take active part in projects

Share your expertise with other Network members

Provide your collections to Europeana

Allow others to reuse your collection metadata via the API

Provide your collections to Europeana (at star pupil level)

What we offer What we ask

A maritime archaeology/history aggregator?

Domain expertise

Curation and digitisation of content

Multi-lingual terminologies

Network building

Build partnerships across Europe

Aggregate

Pool your collections

Provide the to Europeana

This would make the search for Unity possible!

Thank you for your attention!

Questions?

Find us and find out about us

Europeana portal europeana.eu

• New portal preview http://preview.europeana.eu

Europeana Exhibitions http://exhibitions.europeana.eu

Europeana 1914-1918 europeana1914-1918.eu

Europeana blog blog.europeana.eu/

Europeana Professional pro.europeana.eu

• Professional blog pro.europeana.eu/blog

On Facebook facebook.com/Europeana

On Twitter twitter.com/EuropeanaEU

On Pinterest pinterest.com/europeana/

On Google+ plus.google.com/115619270851872228337/posts

On Linked In linkedin.com/groups/Europeana-134927/about