semantic enrichment - digibis · europeana business plan for 2013 must be and, above all, outlining...

DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. No. 8 July-December, 2012.

Information on Digitisation, Virtual Libraries,Proprietary IT developments and

Documenting Services for Archives and Libraries.

Semanticenrichment

Linked Open Data network that allowssemantic enrichment by linking content. TheOCLC has undertaken an identical strategy.

Editorial 3

I N T E R N A T I O N A LEuropeanaEuropeana Business Plan for 2013 4DIGIBÍS links the DPLA and Europeana 5RegulationsRDA: Year 0 6Advances in BIBFRAME 7

L I B R A R I E SPropietary developmentsNew advances in ENUMERATE 8Historical Collection of Documents of the Courts of Aragón 9The Virtual Library of the School of Translators of Toledo 10

E V E N T SPresentationsI Conference on Cultural Heritage of Defense 12The Fundación Ignacio Larramendi and the XI Meeting of Civil Society 13Exhibitions and CongressesEuropeana General Assembly 14NewsDIGIBíS® and cultural industries 16

DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 2012 3

SUMMARY EDITORIAL

DIGICLICDIGIBÍS ® Newsletter

Managing DirectorTachi Hernando de Larramendi

Project Director Xavier Agenjo Bullón

Finance DirectorNuria Ruano Penas

IT Dept. DirectorJesús L. Domínguez Muriel

Art DirectorAntonio Otiñano Martínez

Sales DirectorJavier Mas García

Technology CoordinatorFrancisca Hernández Carrascal

AdministrationMaría Luz Ruiz Rodríguez (coord.)José María Alcega Barroeta

IT DepartmentAndrés Viedma Peláez (coord.)Feli Matarranz de Antonio (coord.)Andrés Felipe Botero Zapata

Julio Diago GarcíaMercedes Marcos SantosAndrés Moreno GarcíaRafael Roldán TejedorFernando Román Ortega

Innovation Department Paulo César Juanes Hernández (coord.)

Noemí Barbero UrbanoMaría Isabel Campillejo SuárezSusana Hernández RubioMontserrat Martínez Guerra

Digitisation Department Francisco Viso Parra (coord.)María José Escuté SerranoÁlvaro Hernáez Ríos

Amando Martínez CatalánJavier Ramos Altamira

Documentation Department Isabel Martín Tirado

Beatriz Pascual FernándezAlicia Varela Villafranca

Luis Fernando Méndez Prado

Sales DepartmentJosé María Tijerín Gómez

Coordination with the Ignacio Larramendi Foundation

Patricia Juez García

DIGIBÍS ®

C/ Claudio Coello, 123, 1ª floor28006 MadridTel.: 91 432 08 88Fax: 91 432 11 13

[email protected] | www.digibis.com

Legal Deposit: M-18050-2009ISSN (print): 1889-4968ISSN (online): 1989-5194

O ne of the most important characteristics involved in the applica-tion of the linked and open data (LOD) model is the ability to se-mantically enrich each and every one of the records of a biblio-

graphic, archival or museological application.In effect, the metadata models of the bibliographic, archival and museo-

logical records allow having appropriate labels to establish links with re-sources also in LOD.The clearest case could be the semantic enrichment of MARC records:

they have a field, 024, in which it is possible to record the URI address of anLOD resource and to specify, though the “$2” subfield, that the link we haverecorded corresponds to a URI structure.Consider as an example the Virtual and International Authorities File,

known by its acronym VIAF: each of the entries in this rich information re-source is comprised of a series of fields in which different authorized formsof name of an author derived from processing of the information sent by na-tional libraries is recorded; if that information is recorded in the 024 field, a

link between the authority record of our virtual li-brary and the VIAF is established; the same can bedone with the authority files or records or resourcesof the LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings),the DBpedia or the List of Subject Headings (LSH)for public libraries that the Ministry of Education,Culture and Sports has recently changed to theSKOS model.

For example, the List of Subject Headings of the Ministry of Education,Culture and Sports is linked to the respective lists of subject headings of theUnited States, France or Germany, at least at the time of this editorial. How-ever, a MARC record, to be linked in turn, through the procedure mentionedin the second paragraph, with records of these lists of subject headings,also in SKOS model, will allow you to browse other similar records. It isclear that linking relates the concepts, overcoming the linguistic differ-ences.The resources mentioned are, in turn, linked with others following the

specific techniques of the simple systems of organization of knowledge and,in turn, those resources are linked to bibliographic records the reader, whois ultimately for whom you work, benefits from through access to richer andeven unexpected information.

Semantic enrichment

Basic strategies forautomated access of allavailable information

DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 20122

4 DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 2012 5DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 2012

EUROPEANA EUROPEANA

INTERNATIONAL I

NTERNATIONAL

DIGIBÍS® links the DPLA and Europeana

O ne of the biggest events of the secondhalf of 2012 was the announcement ofthe next launch of the Digital Public Li-

brary of America (DPLA), a project similar to theEuropeana communicated to members of the Eu-ropeana Task Force at the meeting held in Viennain autumn 2011. In fact, it explicitly uses Europeana as a model

and has planned the implementation and deploy-ment of its collection using procedures similar toit uses. There can be no doubt that it is a rein-forcement and a strengthening of the generalmethodology of Europeana and is an unprece-dented support in the approach of the EU.Thus, the DPLA application model, which in its

third version closely resembles the Europeana DataModel (EDM), has benefited from the contribution ofEuropeana technicians who have participated in itsdrafting. Also, through its specialized mailing list, ithas been possible to make suggestions and modifi-cations to this information structure.

Computer-based development of DIGIBÍS for the API of the DPLA and Europeana

An essential aspect of this, from the point ofview of DIGIBÍS®, was the development of a com-puter tool (API) very useful for both the DPLA andEuropeana. DIGIBÍS®, through its Information Technology

de partment, considered it appropriate to carry outa specific development that would allow joint useof the Europeana API and the DPLA API proto-type, which was communicated to both the direc-tor of the DPLA, Maura Marx, as well as the direc-tor of Europeana, Jill Cousins, and was an-nounced through the Technical Task Forces mail-ing list. The development has obtained the ap-proval of both institutions. Even before the DPLA got underway, a tool for

DIGIBÍS® was developed in open code to simulta-

neously consult two large digital libraries. DI-GIBÍS® foresaw its importance not only to facili-tate the reader’s consultation of a very large digi-tal library (VLDL), but because it foresaw the ad-vantage of consulting a second VLDL with thesame search request.The Europeana Foundation has asked DIGIBÍS®

to prepare an entry for the Europeana Profession-al blog about our development and the DPLA hasannounces its launch on April 18, 2013. No doubt it will become, as Europeana already

is, a first-rate information resource and anotherexample of cooperation in the Linked Open Dataenvironment in Europe and the United States,which is bound to have a considerable influence inthe rest of the world. The pages dedicated to theEuropeana General Assembly in this DIGICLIC®describe the agreement established with NewZealand and Korea, thus extending a data modelthat, in its subsequent updates, becomes increas-ingly more useful and accurate for Linked OpenData editing of bibliographical, archival and muse-ological data.

Europeana Business Plan for 2013

A lthough these pages are written, ofcourse, after the year 2012 and severalweeks later the exact content of Euro-

peana Business Plan for 2013 is still not known,some general descriptions about what its contentwill be can be given.Indeed, throughout 2012 various workshops

were held to clarify different aspects of what theEuropeana Business Plan for 2013 must be and,above all, outlining of the draft on which the staffof the Europeana Foundation and the EuropeanaNetwork will finally work was completed in theEuropeana General Assembly (EGA). It was done

by Harry Verwayen, who left little doubt in his longpresentation (99 slides) about the Business Planat the Annual General Meeting Europeana Net-work, held in Berlin on November 28, 2012.The first thing to note is that the strategic ob-

jectives for 2011-2015 have been defined and it isexpected that 27 million digital objects will bereached during 2013.

The three key points are:First: consideration of Europeana as a con-

stantly expanding ecosystem of information.Second: consideration of Europeana as a Core

Service Platform for the entire European culturalheritage section (expression that could be trans-lated as Europeana acts as a platform that consti-tutes the core of a service that catalyzes and pro-motes technical changes in the sector). Third: consideration of Europeana as a project

that demonstrates the importance of the value of

information now that the digital objects that con-stitute it have a CC0 license, since all kinds of APIand LOD linking techniques and content reuse areapplicable in this huge data set.

In addition to these great strategic lines, a se-ries of important objectives has been set, amongthem that of enhancing dialogue between centraloffices of Europeana and major aggregators,whether cross-disciplinary, such as The Euro-peana Library, or national, having expressly citedthe national aggregator, Hispana.ESE has not been mentioned again due to the

strong commitment to EDM that fits perfectly withthe W3C LLD directives and that has obtained avery important backing with its partial adoption bythe DPLA. Some refinements and advances in EDM has

also been provided. In particular, in regard to Hi-erarchical Objects (initiative that involved theProject Director of the Fundación Ignacio Larra-mendi with an EDM proposal designed from theMontiano Archive), and establishing greater linksfollowing LOD technology. Use of schema.org isalso planned.

data.europeana.eu is accessible with aSPARQL end point as

of 7-21-2012

Europeana Business Plan 2013 draft details.

Digital Public Library of America. Website prototype.


REGULATIONS

INTERNATIONAL

F or library automation specialists, therehas always been a strong reluctance to usethe MARC format. Much less than that of

the librarians themselves who, after a brief train-ing period, are perfectly capable of cataloging abibliographic record with the necessary codes;i,.e., in MARC format; i.e., a set of perfectly prede-fined metadata that the computer is capable ofunderstanding and that the com-puter is capable of transmitting,making projects like Universal Bib-liographic Control in a certain measure a

reality, since they allow the reuseof objects created under that for-mat. In drafting this paragraph, italmost seems like it isone referring to the latestLinked Open Data trendssince it speaks of a set ofmetadata readable by acomputer and, moreover,perfectly reusable by thirdparties.An added bonus of the

MARC format is that it usesnumerical codes for thedifferent cataloging areas,which has extraordinarilyfacilitated its worldwideextension by not linking theparticular codes for each ofthe fields to a determinedlanguage.

Migration from MARC to a new model

However, it is true that the MARC format comesfrom a very old cataloging reality and that, withouta doubt, it does not perfectly fit what the Web todaycould be, and particularly the linked open datatechnology. In particular, its distinction betweenfield and sub-field is especially hard to process or,

to be more specific, makes a more flexible pro-cessing of the bibliographical information difficult.The Library of Congress began a project, called

BIBFRAME, some years ago to migrate the oldMARC format structure to another radically dif-ferent one, based on formats compliant with thesemantic network; the process will be long, nodoubt, much more so than some naïve individuals

expected when the announcementof this migration project was made.On the other hand, it is very inter-

esting to seize the exact momentwhen what was AACR2, and was tobe the AACR3, become a new radi-cally different cataloging modelknown by its acronym RDA. If the

truly impressive advance,from a qualitative point ofview, of the virtual or digi-tal libraries is added tothis, the change from onedata structure to anothercould not be more timely.Nevertheless, there is

still a lot to be done. New advances periodi-

cally arise in this technol-ogy and in this new defini-tion of data, and there areseveral mailing lists inwhich the world’s topexperts in the field of cata-loging and library automa-tion provide a rich discus-

sion from the conceptual point of view and provideall kinds of examples that affirm or contradict in adialectical manner the process of creating the newstandard. Therefore, it was quite appropriate for the

United States Library of Congress to create awebsite which brings together and updates thevarious advances in the project.It is, therefore, an essential reference page.

Advances in BIBFRAME

6 DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 2012

REGULATIONS

INTERNATIONAL

A s is known, RDA is the name that thenew version, or better said, edition, ofAACR2 eventually adopted.

Part of the conceptual developments that theFRBR model represented, as well as the adoptionof International Cataloguing Principles, movedthe Standing Committee on the Revision of Anglo-American Cataloging Rules to prepare a muchmore radical reform than expected (of course, theenormous web development was also a consider-able influence). The result of this radical revisionwas RDA. Nevertheless, it must be noted that to carry

out an automated cataloging it is necessary thatany cataloging code be adapted to a coding, i.e.metadata, that, in the case of libraries, adheresto MARC FORMAT. Therefore, and as of updatenumber nine of the MARC 21 format, new fieldsand sub-fields began to be introduced to reflectfuture cataloging practices and, above all, biblio-graphical ideas underlying the record creationprocess.An important decision also had to be made.

This was to determine a date from which theACCR2 cataloging process would be replaced bythe RDA cataloging process. After extensive delib-erations, the decision was made to postpone the

entry into production of the cataloging until atleast January 2013, not only with RDA but alsowith the updated MARC format. The final date willbe March 31, 2013.

In that regard, the three large national li-braries or that play the role of those in the United

States of America were essential. The Library ofCongress, the National Agricultural Library andthe National Library of medicine developed a jointtraining project that has lasted nearly two years.The National Library of Canada and the Nation-

al Library of Australia were added to this initia-tive, and soon the National Library of GreatBritain joined. Finally, the National Library ofGermany joined the process as well.A work group called EURIG was created in the

rest of Europe with the objective of uniting forcesand coming to agreements for the development ofa process similar to that of the United States, al-lowing the start of RDA production in Europe. Itshould be noted that the Project Director of theFundación Ignacio Larramendi and of DIGIBÍS®,Xavier Agenjo, was prominent in that work groupfrom practically the first moment.Throughout these years, DIGIBÍS® has made

deliberate efforts in the systematic implementa-tion of the variations of the MARC format to ac-commodate the new structured rules in RDA. Infact, the Biblioteca Virtual Larramendi de Polí-grafos [Larramendi Polymath Virtual Library], ac-cessible at the website of the Fundación IgnacioLarramendi, routinely uses it.

RDA: Year 0

Page dedicated to the RDA implementation process.

The Library of Congresspublished the

document in Englishand Spanish

BIBFRAME: short forBibliographical

Framework TransitionInitiative

The Library of Congress leads this team of experts in theSemantic Web domain

T he project of the creation of a digital re-source for the Historical Collection of Doc-uments of the Courts of Aragón is a further

example, although particularly sophisticated, ofthe capacity of DIGIBÍS® to transform some digi-talization projects that had achieved neither thedesired visibility nor accessibility to a completelystandard digital resource, adjusted to the interna-tionally prescribed standard, which allows it to becollected by international aggregators. Further-more, adjusting the metadata schemas of the re-source to the latest regulations enable it to adaptto advances occurring in this field.The project came from two different databases:

one, of bibliographic management, and another,of archival management. Therefore, it was neces-sary to carry out a complex process of transform-ing information in each of the two databases tocurrent standards, which allowed clearing seeingto what degree it is ineffective to separate the dig-italization processes - and the investment madein them - from the creation of digital objects andstandardized databases that allow their use in therichest way possible.

Single process of creating a digital resource

DIGIBÍS® frequently realizes that much moremoney is invested and that much higher budgetsare used when dividing the creation of a digitalresource into different processes: on one hand,digitization; on the other, creation of the recordsthat are not really linked with the digitized imagesand, finally, the integration of those records andthose images in a database able to make full useof the effort made.In this case, and as is frequent and common in

digital resource creation processes, DIGIBÍS®

created a database to process the different typesof manuscript materials, old prints, cartographicmaterials, etc. which comprise the Historical Col-

lection of Documents of the Courts of Aragón, fur-thermore implementing an OAI repository that isupdated dynamically from the database, andtherefore is able to be collected by any of the mostimportant aggregators.So it was in this case, and the digital resources,

the digital heritage objects, to use the terminolo-gy of Europeana, were generated dynamicallyusing the DIGIBIS® information management sys-tem with its corresponding OAI repository and thegeneration of some truly rich metadata schema:what it means, right now, through application ofthe Europeana Data Model. As a result of all that, the Historical Collection

of Documents of the Courts of Aragón is not onlyaccessible on the web page that the reader cansee printed on these pages, but also from His-pana, which collected it a few weeks after release,and from Europeana, which subsequently collect-ed it from Hispana.


PROPIETARYDEVELOPMENTS

LIBRARIES


T he ENUMERATE project made significantprogress in the second quarter of 2012. Ineffect, the Consortium published a data-

base with the result of the survey performed aswell as the electronic and statistical processing ofthe project and survey.

Decisive action of DIGIBÍS®

Statistical processing of 1,950 responses wasperformed by the Dutch company Panteia, a spe-cialist in this sector, but no doubt the most signif-icant action was that of DIGIBÍS®, which created aweb page with a database that allows consultationof all the information collected so far. This work,whose usefulness has been explicitly valued inpublic and in the network in a very appreciativemanner by the members of the consortium and inparticular by Nick Poole, is certainly a work ofgreat usefulness. It should be remembered thatNick Poole is not only the CEO of Collections Trustand the ENUMERATE Consortium itself, but alsocurrently presides over the Europeana Network.

It was therefore not unusual that, as indicatedin the pages of this DIGICLIC® dedicated to theEuropeana General Assembly, the data obtainedby ENUMERATE was brought up during the As-sembly, indicating as a concern and a priority theconsiderable difference between the estimationof the data obtained by ENUMERATE and thatwhich Europeana had at the moment.

In fact, in the European Professional blog anentry was published in which the ENUMERATEConsortium urged Europeana to consider the sta-tistical data obtained, since without a doubt somefuture planning should be based on knowledge ofthe real situation. Although the data supplied byENUMERATE cannot be confirmed to be absolute-ly accurate, it can be said that it goes much fur-ther than an estimate such as Europeana usedbefore the creation, completion and analysis ofthe survey and the publication in the database.The fact that the data is accessible for consulta-

tion by everyone interested in it allows having acorrect idea of the reality of the Europeana projectin regard both to the substance to be digitized aswell as the metadata available and the computingresources, OAI repository or aggregator, andLinked Open Data technology, consistent with thestrategic objectives set by the Europeana project.A second survey is planned during the year

2013, which will evaluate the extent to which avail-able data is relevant and corresponds to reality.


LIBRARIES New advances in ENUMERATE Historical Collection of Documents

of the Courts of Aragón

Of the 2200 dataproviders of

Europeana, 1950answered the

ENUMERATE survey.

The database is at:enumeratedataplatform.digibis.com/datasets.

Presentation of the Website.


T hrough the considerable academic successand acces that led to the creation in 2011 ofthe Virtual Library of the School of Sala-

manca, the Board of the Fundación Ignacio Larra-mendi decided to launch in 2012 an even moreambitious project:a virtual library of the formerSchool of Translators of Toledo. The project, as inthe previous case, has the co-funding of the Fun-dación MAPFRE and has sought the collaborationof the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, the in-stitution to which the new School of Translators ofToledo created in 1994 belongs.Although the discovery, or rediscovery, of the

School of Translators of Toledo occurred in theXIX century with some works that are alreadyclassic, from the second half of the XX century theexistence of the school of translators began tocome into doubt, based on the fact that it had notbeen formally constituted as such and that it didbot resemble a general study or a university. While all this is true, there is no doubt that

such schools existed; and we say schools be-

cause one can speak of at least two periods inwhich a systematic translation of Arabic texts,and to a lesser extent Hebrew, was carried outunder the patronage of two key individuals: theArchbishop of Toledo and King Alfonso X the Wise.An intermediate stage in which another archbish-op of Toledo, Jimenez de Rada, promoted this typeof study can even be discussed.Toledo, which had some exceptional conditions

to serve as a medium for the transmission ofclassical Greco-Roman culture to the West, also

transmitted the culture of the Arabs, immenselypowerful at that time and highly creative, whichalso incorporated considerable achievements ofPersian culture and even Indian culture. Therewere people who knew all these languages inToledo, especially Arabic, Hebrew, Latin andCastilian. And they came to Toledo from all of Eu-rope and they achieved support and wise aid thatthey wanted to incorporate that knowledge that,in a way, had been lost in Western Europe.

The microsite

The Fundación Ignacio Larramendi decided toimplement on its web site a microsite called VirtualLibrary of the School of Translators of Toledo whichincludes all the records authors who were part ofthe school or schools of Toledo with some enor-mously enriched and very fruitful authority records



LIBRARIES The Virtual Library of the School of Translators of Toledo


at the time of recoveringthe information. It was alsodecided to add, in a radi-cally new manner, someArabic or Hebrew authorsand translators –many ofthe Hebrews wrote directlyin Arabic– who had trans-lated the Latin and Greekauthors and had incorpo-rated at the same timelarge amounts of knowl-edge in their translationsthrough comments andoriginal work. The authority records

were made using the lat-ests version of the MARC 21 format, i.e. number 15,which contains a multitude of fields to accommo-date in them data and information about the per-son, i.e. the author. Until this new development,based directly in RDA, authority records providedinformation about the name of the person and notso much about the person himself. So, by providinginformation about the author, it was possible to as-sign him to different schools of thought, link him tocertain authors, to writing in different languages, tohis geographical origin, to the specific era in whichhe acted. All this is reflected in the 37X fields of theMARC 21 authority format, specifically defined toaccommodate the new philosophy of catalogingthat comes from RDA, as indicated on page 6

Semantic enrichment

An essential aspect was the semantic enrich-ment of the records. VIAF (Virtual InternationalAuthority File) links were systematically estab-lished, which is explicitly recommended amongthe datasets advocated by the W3C. Links are ex-pressed through URI and provide many variants. This is fundamental in medieval authors whose

names were written in different ways over the cen-

turies and, given the Arabic or Hebrew nature ofsome, written in both languages. Thus, until theXIX century ibn Gabirol and Avicebrón were con-sidered different authors.

The link to the DBpedia was also added to eachof the authority records of the authors, commen-tators and translators of School of Toledo. This isvery useful given the multilingual nature of thisresource and the great number of links to otherinformation sources. Processing, according to Lin -ked Open Data technology, of the authorities of theSchool of Translators of Toledo and, in general, ofthe Biblioteca Virtual de Polígrafos Españoles[Spanish Polymath Virtual Library] has allowedcreation of a dataset in The Data Hub: PolymathVirtual Library (Authority Data).

LIBRARIES

Theorica planetarium, attributed to Gerardo de Cremona.

Alfonso X in the Libro de juegos [Book of Games].

The Europeana API has allowed 1500 newbibliographic records

to be added

There is no FormalSchool but rather work-

shops, as MenéndezPelayo called them


PRESENTATIONS

EVENTS

W ithout a doubt, as a result of the successof the creation of the Virtual Library of De-

fense, the Subdirectorate General of Publicationsand Culture decided to prepare this Conference toannounce his medium-term strategic plan Though Margarita García Moreno and Pilar

Domínguez had to organize this conference in avery brief period of time, leading specialists of theMinistry of Culture attended: María LuisaMartínez-Conde spoke of projects of digitalizationof bibliographical heritage; Leticia de Frutos, ofprojects of digitalization of artistic heritage yAlfonso Sánchez Mairena, of archival heritage.Before these specialists, the organizers of theConference participated and outlined the projectsthe Subdirectorate General and logically madereference to the Virtual Library of Defense projectpresented in the previous half of the year.

That session was closed by the Project Directorof the Fundación Ignacio Larramendi, whostressed the need of having a Single Point of ref-erence for libraries, archives and museums, butwithout implying a common processing of differ-ent types of heritage materials, rather quite theopposite. It would be the minimum commondenominator of a metadata schema that wouldfacilitate consultation. Ultimately, that is the functional analysis of

both Europeana and the DPLA, both cases follow-ing the recommendations of the W3C LLD. Theafternoon session, moderated by Elena Escolano,

allowed the managers of numerous Defensearchives, libraries and museums to provide infor-mation about the status of their various collec-tions. It was interesting to see how a considerablenumber of digitalization or automation projectshave been done in the past or, even, both projectslinked, although lacking necessary standardiza-tion, which is now intended to be solved.Both the session moderator as well as the

Project Director of the Fundación IgnacioLarramendi insisted that performing the corre-sponding mapping of information for its subse-quent integration in the Virtual Library ofDefense, each with its specific metadata schema,really poses no insurmountable difficulty. That isto say, the MARC format for the libraries, theEAD/EAC format for archives and the LIDO formatfor the museums. If all that digital information were integrated in

the Virtual Library of Defense, it would be easy toachieve maximum visibility and accessibility pos-sible for the rich heritage collections of the Min-istry, since as of the first half of 2012 the VirtualLibrary of Defense has been collected (and willcontinue to be) by Hispana and by Europeana.

Conference on Cultural Heritage of Defense

Panel morning session.

All projects are characterized by compliance with theinternational standard


PRESENTATIONS

EVENTS

A s stated in the news section of the Fun-dación Ignacio Larramendi, the founda-tion tried to take up the baton of the in-

tervention of Ignacio Hernando de Larramendihimself, its founder, in the II Civil Society Meetingheld in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1994. On the web, there are photographs of that in-

tervention, where the current president of theFoundation, Lourdes Martinez, widow of Larra-mendi, also was, all of which highlights a contin-uing interest in the activities of civil society, in-cluding the promotion thereof. In fact, in the Ba-sic Objectives of the Foundation, they are explicit-ly listed as follows:“2. Analysis of the operation of independent

institutions as a means of optimizing resourcesand revitalization of society.”Thus, it is not unusual that the Fundación

Ignacio Larramendi would actively participate inthe XI Encuentro Iberoamericano de la SociedadCivil [XI Iberoamerican Meeting of Civil Society]which was held in Madrid on October 15-16, 2012,

sponsoring along with other major Spanish foun-dations activities held at the premises of theFundación ONCE.

Model of the Digital Agenda for Europe

The Fundación Ignacio Larramendi contributedto the celebration of the conferences with an ad-dress titled La cultura como eje dinamizador de la

sociedad [Culture as a revitalizing axis of society]whose presentation was given by Project Director,Xavier Agenjo.The address, of a strong technological bias,

emphasized the model that Digital Agenda forEurope (2020) assumes and noted that one of thekey actions, number 15, is specifically dedicatedto the creation of Europeana, the digital library,archive and museum of Europe in which theFundación Ignacio Larramendi and DIGIBÍS® playsuch an important role.The essential aspect of the communication is

basedon the application of Linked Open Datatechnology and reuse of the contents in other ar-eas of social action, such as justice, health, com-merce or administration.

The Fundación Ignacio Larramendi and the XI Meeting of Civil Society

Above: Juan Andrés García, director of the AEF, Rosa María Pulido, executive vice-chair of the

Fundación Eugenio de Mendoza and chair of the nextMeeting, and Carmen Hernando de Larramendi,

patron of the Fundación Ignacio Larramendi. Below, from the right, her brothers and also patrons

of the Foundation, Miguel, Margarita y Tachi, the latterDirector General of DIGIBÍS, and Xavier Agenjo,

Project DIrecor of the Foundation and of DIGIBÍS.Result of the presenta-tion arose the project of organizing a

Conference on health inthe context of the AEF.

Turning to other essential aspects of the Euro-peana General Assembly, Max Kaiser paid specialattention to everything related to Europeana ver-sion two, known as Europeanav2, which will bebrought into operation during 2013. It is one of theobjectives of the Business Plan for the year. Someof its technical aspects are already available inEuropeana Preview.

Bilateral meetings and work groups

As is customary at this type of meeting, all sortof bilateral meetings were held among Euro-peana data providers. Work groups dedicated tovarious technical aspects of the project were alsoformed, acting according to the methodology al-ready described on various occasions. This in-volves listing a series of very specific lines of ac-tion and subsequently presenting them to the

whole Assembly; those points which are most sig-nificant or relevant to the members of the Assem-bly are those that will be reflected in the annualBusiness Plan.It is appropriate to also emphasize that there

was a series of sessions dedicated to the briefpresentation of some projects, highlightingamong them the creation of a very complex appli-cation by the OntoText company to create a SPAR-QL service that accesses Europeana data alreadyavailable as Linked Open Data. Mariana Damova,who presented the project, commended and dis-cussed with the Project Director of the FundaciónIgnacio Larramendi the possibility of joint collab-oration on a project of these characteristics. De-spite the short time, the collaboration was com-pleted a few weeks later in a project called HOLEand, although it is not possible to say that it will befunded by the European Union, it is a good sign thatboth the Fundación Ignacio Larramendi and DI-GIBÍS® are increasingly known to individual mem-bers of the Europeana Network. The possibility of extending the OAsIs® software

to other countries was also discussed, i.e. the in-formation system developed by DIGIBÍS® thatcombines OAI recollectors and repositories thatare reciprocally fed in a dynamic manner and thatis, for example, the technical basis of the highlyvaluable Spanish aggregator Hispana.

DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 2012 1514 DIGICLIC®. DIGIBÍS® Newsletter. Nº 8 July-December, 2012

O n November 27, 2012, the EuropeanaGeneral Assembly was held, hosted onthis occasion by the hospitality of vari-

ous institutions of the city of Berlin.It was an particularly productive occasion, as

the maturity of the project –established firmly onthe significant number of digital objects in the Eu-ropeana portal– shows the degree to which it isincreasing moving forward, steadily, towards thegoals set by the 2011-2015 Strategic Plan.

The first part of the session was dedicated tothe analysis of the draft of the 2013 BusinessPlan. In that draft objectives are set that, althoughambitious, are perfectly feasible. In this case, thepresentation was given by Harry Verwayen.Also particularly useful was the information

from Louise Edwards about the Fundación Euro-peana which constitutes, along with EuropeanaNetwork, the two organizational pillars of Euro-peana without losing sight, of course, of the indi-vidual or specific projects that will be developedalso with very specific goals. Edwards developedthe concept of commons applied to Europeanaand what it entails.

FRBRoo, persistent links and hierarchical objects

Yesterday there was a very intense work ses-sion of the Europeana Task Forces dedicated to

different issues such as the use of FRBRoo, per-sistent links and hierarchical objects. The ProjectDirector of the Fundación Ignacio Larramendi,who is part of this latter group, presented a workmodel and a metadata schema based on a de-tailed reflection on the Europeana Data Model forhierarchical objects. He applied the reflexion to a specific case: the

Montiano Family Archive, one of the databasesthat makes up the website of the Fundación Igna-cio Larramendi.

Digital archives produced by DIGIBÍS® amongthe few collected by Europeana

The Montiano archive –which Ignacio Hernandode Larramendi had as an heir and direct descen-dant of Agustín Montiano y Luyando, creator andfirst director of the Real Academia de la Historia[Royal Academy of History]– is structured accord-ing to EAD and EAC; a crosswalk between thosearchival standards and the MARC format of au-thorities and bibliographical records, respective-ly, has been established. The information can be displayed using the

ISAD (G) and ISAAR (CPF) standards. Althoughthere is much left to do to reach a satisfactory re-sult, it is appropriate to point out that this file, likethe “Word file” and “Image file” of the Castille-LaMancha Community Council, has been collectedby Europeana. The three files mentioned –all pro-duced by DIGIBÍS®– have joined the small num-ber of archives that Europeana has been able toincorporate to date.One of the greatest problems lies in the possi-

bility of creating hierarchies adapted to the Euro-peana Data Model, and that was just what theFundación Ignacio Larramendi presented at themeeting last November 26. The discussion, whichtook place within the Hierarchical Objects TaskForce, will result in an analysis report and recom-mendations to be published in early 2013.

EXHIBITIONSAND CONGRESSES

EVENTS

The EuropeanaAwareness project aimsto make the EuropeanVirtual Library known to the broadest audience possible

The possibility ofextending the DIGIBÍSOAsIs software, technical basis of

Hispana, was discussed

Europeana General Assembly

EXHIBITIONSAND CONGRESSES

Various moments at the Assembly.

EVENTS


EL TÍTULOEN VERSALITAS

D IGIBÍS® is a company that is character-ized, among other specifics, by its firmcommitment to R+D+i. It has already been

noticed in previous published issues of DIGICLIC®.DIGIBÍS® answered the call for creation of soft-

ware for the international dissemination of Span-ish cultural heritage with a proposal to develop aspecific product which it called“OAsIs Museos,”and was awarded the project, according to record622/51 07 with a budgeted amount of 65,000 eu-ros.With this help and, above all, within the frame-

work of the development of cultural industries,DIGIBÍS® suggested development of a completelyrewritten application of its DIGIMUS® programthat would have functionalities as effective ashaving dynamically fed OAI repository from themuseological database that the Europeana DataModel (EDM) generates. The LIDO (Lightweight Information Describing

Objects) schema, which is the international stan-dard for collection of museums data sponsored bythe International Council of Museums (ICOM),was selected as a data model for this project. Theproject is already quite advanced and an alphawith which ambitious projects are being perform-ing is available.The circumstance has allowed the develop-

ment of a new commercial product (that for rea-sons of business strategy will be named the sameas the previous one: DIGIMUS 2.0®), which hasbeen very timely because DIGIBÍS® has been thesuccessful bidder of two consultancies for thecreation of a single point of consultation for thearchives, libraries and museums of the Ministryof Defense.DIGIBÍS® has also been entrusted with the

drafting of the first phase of an information sys-tem developed specifically to serve as supportand gather all existing information about el Gre-

co, since 2014 will mark the fourth centennial ofhis death.Thus, there will be a new program, very ad-

vanced, which will feature the most importantfunctionalities for the exchange of information;among them the most prominent are those thathave been outlined above, i.e. OAI and EDM, aswell as the various information exchange mod-ules based primarily in METS that, as is known, isan encapsulator of different types of metadata,among which should be highlighted Dublin Coreand, and in the museological field, those alreadymentioned LIDO and EDM, as well as METSrigths,METS/ALTO, PREMIS, etc.In consideration of the consultancies indicated,

it is clear that the data model, functional specifi-cations and standards that Europeana promotes,as well as the W3C LLD (available on the websiteof the Fundación Ignacio Larramendi in Englishwith a Spanish translation), are increasingly wide-spread in Spain. DIGIBÍS® is happy to be con-tributing to this in a prominent way as shown bythe applications (and statistics) existing in Spainand reflected in the Spanish contribution to Euro-peana.

NEWS

DIGIBÍS® and cultural industries

DIGICLIC nº 8 IN ENGLISH

ONLINE EDITION

You can read DIGICLIC nº 8 on our Website:http://www.digibis.com/digiclic.html

EVENTS

Activity supported by theMinisterio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.