europeanaconnect

www.europeanaconnect.eu

EuropeanaConnect EVA / MINERVA Conference 2010 Jerusalem, November 16–17, 2010

Max Kaiser, Austrian National Library [email protected], www.onb.ac.at

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.onb.ac.at/

EuropeanaConnectMax Kaiser, Austrian National LibraryEVA / MINERVA Conference 2010Jerusalem, November 16–17, 2010


What is EuropeanaConnect ?

• “Best Practice Network”• Co-funded by European Commission in the eContentplus programme

• Duration May 2009 – October 2011 (= 2,5 years)

• 30 project partners from 14 countries• Coordinated by Austrian National Library

• ~ 900 Person Months total labour effort

• Total budget: 5.625.000 Euro• 80 % EU funding: 4.500.000 Euro



Project Partners …



Partner Institutions• Europeana Foundation, The Hague

• 8 Libraries:

• Austrian National Library (Coordinator)

• Royal Library of Denmark• National Library of Luxembourg• National Library of the Netherlands• Innsbruck University Library• State- and University Library

Göttingen• German National Library• National Library of Portugal

• 10 Universities and Academies of Sciences:

• Humboldt University Berlin• University of Vienna• Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon• Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam• National Technical University of

Athens• University of Amsterdam • University of Padua• Polish Academy of Sciences• Hungarian Academy of Sciences• Slovenian Academy of Sciences



Partner Institutions• 7 Research Institutes:

• Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, AT

• OFFIS Institute for Information Technology, DE

• XEROX SAS, FR• CELI S.R.L., IT• Knowledgeland, NL• University College London

Consultants Ltd, UK • AIT Applied Information

Technology ltd., AT

• 1 Broadcast Company:• RBB – Rundfunk Berlin-

Brandenburg

• 1 Publishing House:• Amsterdam University Press

• 1 Institute for Literature:• Institute of Lithuanian Literature

and Folklore, Vilnius

• 1 Consultant Company:• Eremo s.r.l., Cupramontana

ATHENA Access to Cultural Heritage

Networks across Europe

APEnet Archives Portal Europe

BHL-Europe Biodiversity Heritage

Libraries Europe

EUscreen

EFG European

Film Gateway

Europeana Local

Europeana Travel

MIMO Musical Instruments

Museums Online

Judaica Europeana

Europeana Regia

CARARE Connecting Archaeology and Architecture in Europeana

HOPE Heritage of People’s Europe

Europeana Group of Projects

ArrowPresto PRIME

Europeana v1.0

EuropeanaConnectASSETS

Europeana



http://www.armypictorialcenter.com/the_big_picture.htm



Key Objectives of EuropeanaConnect

1. Provide a critical mass of audio content to Europeana and implement an audio-enabling infrastructure

2. Provide tools and methodologies for user-driven development and for testing and evaluation

3. Build the Semantic Layer for Europeana4. Facilitate multilingual access to Europeana5. Develop novel access channels to Europeana (like mobile access)6. Build the Europeana Licensing Framework7. Build value-added services (like user annotations & e-Books-on-Demand)8. Implement key infrastructure components (like OAI-PMH infrastructure)9. Enable stronger and wider collaborative networking



Key Objectives of EuropeanaConnect

Audio Content

Semantic Layer &

MultilingualityServices

Licensing Framework

Infrastructure



What is EuropeanaConnect building?

Adding the music dimension to Europeana…



New audio content for Europeana

• Today (Oct. 2010): there’s not much music in Europeana … :

• 66% Images• 32% Text• 1% Video• 1% Audio

• Most of Europeana’s audio content has been provided by EuropeanaConnect:

• EuropeanaConnect is adding the music dimension to Europeana• Five audio archives are consortium members• Continuous approach to involvement of new audio archives for the

entire duration of the project



Audio Aggregation Platform (AAP)

• Tool for audio aggregation in Europeana• Collects / stores / processes audio and audio-related music data• Serves as OAI Data Provider for Europeana

• Stages of the aggregation process:1. Metadata is mapped to Europeana Semantic Elements / Europeana

Data Model2. Data become linked to AAP classifications/word lists3. Mapping checked by content owner, approved results tested within

content checker4. Audio files either hosted by AAP or stays with owner5. Metadata harvested by Europeana, according to their schedule



New audio content for Europeana: Status Sept. 2010

• Content from more than 165 audio collections already available via Audio Aggregation Platform:

• 151.000 digital audio/audio-related items (122.000 audio files)• 105.000 audio files already harvested by Europeana• 500 registered users of the Audio Aggregation Platform• Content continually aggregated/updated

• More than 200.000 music tracks expected by project end



EuropeanaConnect Audio Aggregation Platform

Entry page and details of individual record

http://www.dismarc.eu/



Example: Audio in Europeana



Audio in Audio Aggregation Platform

http://www.dismarc-audio.org/ISPAN/T0641_19.mp3



Example: Audio in Europeana



Audio in data provider’s platform

http://www.womex.com/virtual/pure_son_g/macire_sylla/mariama



Support for audio providers

• How to start?• Audio Starter Kit on EuropeanaConnect Website• Describes process of providing audio content to Europeana

via the AAP• Ongoing support for partner archives / joining archives in data / technical

issues• Help Wiki: http://dev.ait.co.at/dismarc/wiki/index.php5/Category:Dismarc_portal• Various Powerpoints• Upcoming workshops in November 2010:

• Preparation of content and metadata, aimed at technicians, Graz• Preservation vs. Dissemination, aimed at content owners, Warszawa

http://dev.ait.co.at/dismarc/wiki/index.php5/Category:Dismarc_portal



EuropeanaConnect Audio Exhibition

• Weddings in Eastern Europe• http://econnect.ait.co.at/wedding-exhibition/

http://econnect.ait.co.at/wedding-exhibition/

http://econnect.ait.co.at/wedding-exhibition/



What do users really want?



User Orientation – Why, How?

• Why:• We want Europeana to be used widely by people• We (= project team members of the Europeana group)

are not necessarily identical with these ”people”

• How:• Personas• Log file analysis• Surveys• User Testing Methodologies



What are „Personas“?

• Archetypal representations of our users

In our case:• Combination of personal characteristics along two axis:

• Natural search behaviour (navigational / explorative)• How you approach things, personality and preferences

• Search literacy• What you know and how experienced you are

• Personas are based on:• Existing research: search behaviour, user studies, interaction design• Existing personas from domain of archives, museums and libraries• A personas workshop with participants from several countries



Personas matrix

PROFILE 3 ”Jukka”

PROFILE 4 ”Maria”

PROFILE 7 ”Peter”

PROFILE 2 ”Sarah”

PROFILE 6 ”William”

PROFILE 5 ”Sven”

PROFILE 9 ”Julia”

Explorative behaviour

Navigational behaviour

Difficult Search

Effortless Search



Focusing on the user – how Personas are used

• User scenarios:• Short stories that describe someone using a product

• One Persona can have several user scenarios• Will maintain their own personality and approach regardless of

situation of use• One user scenario can be applied to different Personas

• See how they might react differently in an otherwise identical situation

• Personas are very useful in order to remember key characteristics of the usersWill guide Europeana development process!



Log File Analysis

• Log File Analysis for Europeana to evaluate the use of the services

• How do users really navigate and search in Europeana?

• Method: Deep log analysis• Monthly log file analysis reports

provided to Europeana

Building the Europeana Semantic Layer



Build the Europeana Semantic Layer

• Goal: Europeana Resources accessible not only via metadata records but as linked data

• Open the data silos of cultural heritage metadata and controlled vocabularies

• Organise Europeana data space as network of interlinked resources for object discovery and further use

• Semantic Layer will allow to• Build innovative interfaces for Europeana• Perform automatic processing of semantically enriched and linked data

• Prerequisite for integration of and with other semantically aware WWW services



What will be linked?

• Object Descriptions• Metadata

• Object Abstractions• E.g. Thumbnails, TOCs

• Existing Structured Resources• Vocabularies etc.

• Linked Data in the WWW• E.g. DBpedia, VIAF, LCSH



What will EuropeanaConnect do?

• Build a repository of harvested semantic resources • Vocabularies, classification schemes …

• Convert data into semantic representations• Semantic processing will mostly use SKOS

• Semantically enrich Europeana content by mapping it to these semantic representations

• E.g. Link “Amsterdam” to an URI of Geo-Vocabulary

• Enhance the semantic network by identifying new semantic connections between objects / nodes

• Automate these workflows to the largest possible scale



Semantic Data Layer Creation

• Inventory of resources of interest / available in the Europeana context for ingestion into the semantic layer

• Conversion of first knowledge organization systems• 10 “families” of concept schemes available in RDF

• Emphasis on SKOS as representation model• Data made available on Europeana SVN

• Initial tests on enriching object representations with linked data resources

• Geonames, DBPedia, VIAF … more to come!



Workflow automation

• XMLRDF conversion toolkit • Convert metadata and vocabularies from XML into RDF using a clear

and modular workflow.

• AMALGAME alignment meta-tool for combining and evaluating various alignment methods (in development)

• Designed to work for large vocabularies with a focus on transparency of provenance and quality of the produced mappings

• Combines alignment methods in a workflow composition environment• Web-interface for statistical data analysis and evaluation tool for quick

assessment of combined alignment subsets



APEnet EAD data conversion (archive EAD data)

<c03 id="HaNA_4_ZHPB4_Coll1" level=“collection"><c04 id="HaNA_4_ZHPB4_1" level="file">

<did><unitid type="bestellnummer">1</unitid><unitdate >[1568 - 1573]</unitdate><physdesc>17 kaarten (in een map) <physfacet

type="condition"> zwart-wit reproducties op ware grootte;</physfacet><extent>Afmetingen 62 x 71 cm</extent>

</physdesc></did>

</c04></c03>

XMLRDF Conversion rules

Original EADXML metadata

EAD to EDM Mapping model

EAD records in Semantic layer

XMLRDF conversion



Demo: Europeana Semantic Layer

http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/europeana/

http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/europeana/



Results of data conversion support

Clean workflow based on simple small steps

Toolkit will be part of the workflow automation

Rule system relatively easy to learn and use for people without programming background

Description of the toolkit: http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/Connect/xmlrdf.pdf

Several sample conversions to Europeana Data Model (EDM)

Work in EuropeanaConnect has had significant/essential impact on EDM!

http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/Connect/xmlrdf.pdf

Multilingual Access



Multilingual Access to Europeana

• Multilingual aspects are at the heart of making Europeana content accessible for users across all European countries

• Europeana metadata descriptions are generally not multilingual

• EuropeanaConnect: • Provide multilingual access capabilities for Europeana• Users will be able to find relevant content in Europeana

even if its not described in their native / preferred language



What will EuropeanaConnect do?

• Build Europeana Repository of Language Resources for translation and mapping

• Tools for multilingual mapping of controlled vocabularies • Suite of translation services for querying and browsing• Supported set of languages:

• Start with English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish• Expand with Dutch, Hungarian, Portuguese, Swedish



Make Europeana talk European…

2.1 User

Studies

User Needs

2.2 Language Resources Repository

Resources

2.3 Mapping of Controlled

Vocabularies

Multilingual Browsing

2.4 Translation

Modules

Multilingual Search 2.5

Sandbox Testing & Evaluation

2.6Integration

Testing + Integration

Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing



Europeana User Preferences for Multilingual Access

• EuropeanaConnect Report on User Preferences and Information Retrieval Scenarios for Multilingual Access in Europeana

• Multilingual Users• Interface• Search (Query Translation)• Result Representation (Filtering)• Browsing

Suggested Usage Scenarios



Repository of Language Resources

• Survey on language resources among Europeana partners• Listing of components & suggested resources:

• Stop word lists• Morphological analyzers (tokenization, lemmatization,

decompounding, part of speech tagging)• Named entity recognizers• Translation dictionaries• Language identifier

French English SpanishGerman Italian Polish

Dutch PortugeseHungarian Swedish



Repository of Language Resources

• Language Resources Repository: software and linguistic data• Online in EuropeanaLabs• Java APIs to access each type of resource (wrappers)• Standardized set of description features for each resource• Some test corpora for evaluation• Open-source (anonymous download) & password-protected sections

(proprietary resources)• Stop word lists / language identifiers / morphological analyzers for all 10

languages; NE recognizers for en, fr, de; translation dictionaries for 7 lang

• Publicly-visible register of available resources: http://europeanalabs.eu/wiki/LinguisticResourceRegister

http://europeanalabs.eu/wiki/LinguisticResourceRegister



Multilingual Mapping of Controlled Vocabularies

• Augmenting the Europeana Semantic Layer with semantic resources and alignment between these

• Give the Semantic Layer a multilingual dimension

• Listing: Languages and Vocabularies for Selection• Surveys• Identified several vocabularies in all 10 languages

• Prioritizing vocabularies • By access, relevance, language• Pivot vocabularies essential: multilingual, wide-coverage, widely

adopted• UDC, DDC, Wordnets, Geonames, TGN, VIAF, dbPedia



Multilingual Mapping of Controlled Vocabularies

• Methodology:• Priority on Pivot vocabularies for relevant categories (subject,

persons, places…), multilingual and with wide coverage• E.g., VIAF, Geonames, Wordnets, dbPedia

• Map these resources when needed• E.g. Wordnet, dbPedia and Geonames have places

• Align more specific vocabularies—domain, institution and/or language—to the (networked) pivots

• Development of tools for alignment:• AMALGAME tool

New Access Channels to Europeana



Spatio-temporal User Interface: Europeana 4D

• Make use of time-related and geographical metadata of the Europeana Semantic Layer

• Provide a new visual access channel for Europeana• Combination of spatial and temporal metadata for visualisation• Interactive and generic map of geo-related tagged events, places

and characters in Europe – combined with timeline• Prototype of spatio-temporal interface and search available

• Pure JavaScript based approach on the client side• Different possible back-ends for maps

• Switchable map backend• Including some historic maps



Europeana 4D: The start page



Europeana 4D: The first result set



Europeana 4D: Selection of historic maps



Europeana 4D: Selection tools (map)

Selection of countries(also works with historic maps)

Selection of polygons



Europeana 4D: Selection tools cont. (timeline)

Selection of a time range

Fuzzy selection



Europeana 4D: Aggregation of points

One aggregated point...

...fall into multiple smallerones after zooming in.



Mobile Access Channel to Europeana

• Generic Mobile Client, adapting to the user‘s mobile device• 2 main requirements:

• Adaptation of the mobile Europeana portal to the capabilities of the user's mobile device

• Location-based searching• Allow users to search for works inside Europeana

around their current position

• Integration with Europeana• Basic mobile interface for Rhine Release



Europeana on a mobile device anno 2009 …



Feature comparison



System Architecture

Basic Services

• Device dependent mobile Portal• Support for different resolutions and device capabilities

Basic Services

• Device dependent mobile Portal• Support for different resolutions and device capabilities

Advanced Services

• Location aware searching•Advanced searching

Advanced Services

• Location aware searching•Advanced searching

Europeana Database

Mobile Web BrowsersHeterogeneous devices using differentbrowsers (Opera, Safari, …)

Mobile Web BrowsersHeterogeneous devices using differentbrowsers (Opera, Safari, …)



Europeana Mobile: Index page



Europeana Mobile: Search results - Mixed



Europeana Mobile: Search results – Text only



Europeana Mobile: Search results – Image only



Europeana Mobile: Object presentation



Advanced features: Rich client

•Not yet integrated in Europeana production system

•Advanced search•Results in map•Location aware• What is around me?• Where is a specific item?•Directions



Advanced features: Around me



Advanced features: Around me (all institutions)



Europeana Licensing Framework



Europeana Licensing Framework

• EuropeanaConnect is building the Europeana Licensing Framework• Covers rights information for content (metadata) in Europeana and accessible

from Europeana• Data Provider and Data Aggregator Agreements• Europeana Public Domain Charter

• Published in April 2010 - Endorsed by Europeana and European Commission• Public Domain Helper Tool

• Tool to support decision if a work is in the public domain• Available in Beta Version for 6 jurisdictions, will be expanded to 30

jurisdications• License Helper Tool

• Beta version available



Licensing Framework achievements

In place for Europeana Rhine release (autumn 2010):

• Data Provider Agreement• Data Aggregator Agreement

• Both subject to several rounds of review, over 200 comments received from last round through Europeana network

• End-User Terms of Use• Based on Agreements• http://www.europeana.eu/portal/termsofservice.html

http://www.europeana.eu/portal/termsofservice.html



Licensing framework components



Additional components available as beta

• Public Domain Helper Tool• Computational tool to help investigating Public Domain status of

works.

• Licence Selection Tool• Integrated into Europeana ingestion workflow to assure

compliance of data providers/Aggregators



Public Domain Charter & Mark

• Public Domain Charter• http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/publications

• Public Domain Mark• Developed with Creative Commons• http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• User Contributed Content – Policy and Terms • Organising a series of targeted workshops on risks and

rewards of putting metadata on web

http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/publications

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/



Challenges

• Metadata is provided under restrictive terms that make it difficult for Europeana to operate at full potential

• Europeana metadata is limited by « non-commercial re-use only » provision

• Not compatible with Wikipedia and many other datasets• « Infection » by non-commercial restriction of whole Linked Data

set• Response: Workshop series

• Multistakeholder, politically complex issue



Public Domain Helper Tool

• Legal analysis

• Process• Legal analysis produces a flowchart• Flowchart is transformed into data and code• Code and data provide end-user interface

• Future work: • Expansion from 6 to 30 jurisdictions



Public Domain Calculator basic function

Is the work in the public domain?

Public Domain Calculator

Yes

No

Flowcharts



Author’s rights and Neighbouring rights Flowchart (NL)



Beta Tools live (no warranties)

• Licence selection tool:• http://test.kl.nl/europeana/license_selection_tool/License_Selectio

n_Tool.html

• Public Domain Helper tool:• http://test.kl.nl/europeana/PDCalculator/PDCalculator.html

• Please note the disclaimer!

http://test.kl.nl/europeana/license_selection_tool/License_Selection_Tool.html

http://test.kl.nl/europeana/license_selection_tool/License_Selection_Tool.html

http://test.kl.nl/europeana/PDCalculator/PDCalculator.html

User Generated Content



• Harness volunteer effort to collect additional metadata• Provide basis for knowledge exchange, communication &

cooperative research• Create incentive to engage with the matter more deeply• Facilitate community building

Multimedia Annotation in Europeana



Annotation Tool: Feature Overview

• Free-text annotation

• Semantic tagging

• Supports images, audio and video content

• Special support for high-resolution map images:• Tile-based rendering for faster delivery• Geo-referencing• Semantic tag suggestions based on geographic location• Place search functionality• Overlay of present-day country borders, coast outlines, etc.

• Shape drawing tools on images, maps and video

• Browser-based



Example: Map Annotation



Media Annotation Online Showcase

Try Yourself!http://dme.ait.ac.at/annotation

http://dme.ait.ac.at/annotation

eBooks-on-Demand



eBooks-on-Demand

• Task 5.7, led UIBK• Integration of eBooks on Demand (EOD) Service into

Europeana• http://www.books2ebooks.eu/

• Allows for an automatic and generic transfer of Books from EOD to Europeana

• 1st prototype of the EOD connector delivered

http://www.books2ebooks.eu/

Back-office Components



Bringing metadata into Europeana

Museums

Archives

Libraries

Audio Archives

Film Archives

Broadcast Archives

others …



Bringing metadata into Europeana

Museums

Archives

Libraries

Audio Archives

Film Archives

Broadcast Archives

others …

APEnet Athena

The European

LibraryEuropeana

Connect

EFG

EUScreen

OAI-PMH Management Infrastructure



Key infrastructure components

• Europeana OAI-PMH Management Infrastructure (REPOX)• Europeana harvests metadata from a large number of OAI data providers• REPOX: service for management of OAI data providers and for administration

of harvested metadata records

• Europeana Metadata Registry• Registration and management of metadata terms and schemas created by

various communities in multiple contexts

• Europeana Service Registry• Manages service descriptions of Web Services and support integration of

external services into Europeana (mashups)



… and more infrastructure components …

• Europeana Persistent Identifier Resolution Service• Meta-Service: forwards PI resolution requests to resolution services of

national libraries and to resolvers for other identifier networks

• Integration of Geographical Information Services• Geoparser and Gazetteer: will enrich Europeana metadata and content with

explicit geographical metadata and references



More information?

http://www.europeanaconnect.eu/




[email protected]

http://www.onb.ac.at http://www.europeanaconnect.eu

http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxkaiser http://www.slideshare.net/maxkaiser http://twitter.com/maxkaiser

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.onb.ac.at/


http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxkaiser

http://www.slideshare.net/maxkaiser

http://twitter.com/maxkaiser

europeanaconnect

Education

europeana stages

audio aggregation

music dimensionto europeana

audio files

europeana licensing

europeanas audio content

audiorelated music data

critical mass of audio