www.linkedheritage.eu

shareculture,,linkcontent!!

Coordination of standardsand technologiesfor the enrichmentof Europeana

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COORDINATORIstituto Centrale per il CatalogoUnico delle biblioteche italianee per le informazioni bibliograficheITALY • ICCU

TECHNICAL COORDINATORPromoter s.r.l.ITALY • PROMOTER

AUSTRIA• UMA Information TechnologyGmbH •UMA

BELGIUM• PACKED - Centre of Expertise

in Digital Heritage • PACKED• KMKG - Koninklijke Musea Voor

Kunst en Geschiedenis • KMKG

BULGARIA• Central Library of The Bulgarian

Academy of Sciences • CL-BAS

CYPRUS• The Cyprus Research And

Educational Foundation CREF • CYI

CZECH REPUBLIC• Institut Umeni - Divadelni

ustav • IDU

ESTONIA• Eesti Vabariigi

Kultuuriministeerium • EVK

FRANCE• Ministère de la culture et

de la communication •MCC• Université de Savoie• UNIV-SAVOIE

• Dedale | Culture,Technologies,Social Innovation • DEDALE

GERMANY• Stiftung Preussischer

Kulturbesitz • SPK• Philipps Universitaet

Marburg • PUM• Mvb Marketing Und Verlagsservice

Des Buchhandels Gmbh •MVB• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Universitaet Hannover • LUH

GREECE• University of Patras • UP• National Technical University

of Athens • NTUA• Hellenic Ministry Of Culture • HMC

HUNGARY• Orszagos Szechenyi Konyvtar • NSL

IRELAND• Pintail ltd • PL• Local Government Management

Agency • LGMA

ITALY• Consiglio Nazionale

delle Ricerche • CNR• Università degli studi di Roma

La Sapienza - DigiLab • UNIROMA1• Università degli studi

di Padova • UNIPD• Medra s.r.l. •MEDRA• C.t.f.r. Srl • CTFR

LATVIA• Valsts Agentura Kulturas

Informacijas Sistemas • KIS

POLAND• Stowarzyszenie Miedzynarodowe

Centrum ZarzadzaniaInformacja • ICIMSS

PORTUGAL• Instituto Superior Tecnico • IST

SLOVAK REPUBLIC• Cordia As • CORDIA

SLOVENIA• Javni Zavod Republike Slovenije

Za Varstvo KulturneDediscine • IPCHS

SPAIN• Fundacio Privada I2cat,

Internet I Innovacio Digital ACatalunya • i2CAT

• Departament de Cultura i Mitjansde Comunicació • GENCAT

SWEDEN• Riksarkivet • RA

UNITED KINGDOM• Editeur Limited • EDITEUR• Digital Heritage Lbg • DH• Collections Trust Lbg • CT

CONTRIBUTORSBELGIUM• Museum Plantin-Moretus

/Prentenkabinet,AntwerpenREPUBLIC OF CROATIA• Ministry of CultureGERMANY• Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-

Württemberg (BSZ)HUNGARY• Museum of Fine Arts,BudapestISRAEL• via Digital Heritage,UKLITHUANIA• Lithuanian Art Museum,VilniusRUSSIAN FEDERATION• via Centre PICSERBIA• National Library of Serbia,BelgradeSPAIN• Treelogic at AsturiasUKRAINA• Center BALI (LTD),Kiev

Partnersand Contributors

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The aim of the Linked Heritage project has beento facilitate and deliver large-scale, long-termenhancement of Europeana and its services.

This has been achieved by:• Contributing approximately 3 million additional

digital content items.• Giving advice about the use of persistent

identifiers in digital cultural heritageand their use in the linked data scenario.

• Addressing the issue of non-standard descriptiveterminologies; this has enhanced the qualityof content of Europeana in terms of metadatarichness, re-use potential, and uniqueness.

• Exploring the management of metadatain the private sector and outlining the benefitsof private sector interoperability with Europeana.

The Linked Heritage project has beenable to deliver upon its core objectivesby bringing together ministries andresponsible government agencies,content providers and aggregators,leading research centres, publishers andSMEs, from throughout Europe who haveoffered up their expertise and time.The establishment of a strong ‘bestpractice network’ in Work Packages2, 3, 4, and 7 has provided the necessaryguidelines and policy for the progressionof the project.Work Packages 5 and 6 haveplayed a complementary role,implementing the technologies set out bythe best practice network, and coordinatingthe aggregation of over 3 million digitalcontent items into Europeana.

Introduction

Number of Partners& Contributors38 Partners10 Contributors

Number of Countries

26Numbersof Languagesrepresented

21

The Project in Numbers

Visits to projectwebsiteOver 30,000Unique visitorssince March 2011

Linking Cultural HeritageInformationLeader:Collections Trust,UK

The main objective was to explore the stateof the art in linked data and its applicationsand potential.This goal was accomplishedthrough the publication of several documentsthat addressed the topic of linked data froma variety of angles and provided best practicerecommendations.These outputs servedas beneficial sources of information for theproject partners and the wider cultural heritagecommunity, and as useful guides for thesuccessful execution of project objectives.

A best practice report oncultural heritage linked dataandmetadata standardsThe report provided first, an overviewof linked data; second, a discussionon the survey results of Linked Heritagepartners on their awareness of linkeddata; third, an analysis of the ‘LinkingOpen Data Cloud’; and fourth, gavebest practice advice on publishinginformation as linked data.

In recommending best practicesfor publishing information as linkeddata, the report took into considerationa wide range of issues that complicatethe process. Issues addressed includewhat kind of linked data to publish;which license to publish linked dataunder; how, in terms of technicalstandards, to publish culturalheritage linked data and the processof contributing to Europeana therebyproviding a practical introductionto the process of contributinginformation as linked data.

State of the art report onpersistent identifier standardsandmanagement toolsThis report educated the partners andthe wider cultural heritage community,about persistent identifiers. It also gavebest practice advice based on the useof persistent identifiers in the culturalheritage community and in particulartheir use in the context of linked data.The study represented both anintroduction to the topic of persistentidentifiers and a guiding documentfor the rest of the project.

Specification of the technologiesfor large-scale implementationof cultural heritage linked dataThis report outlined the specificationsof the technologies for large-scaleimplementation of cultural heritagelinked data. Utilising the findings of theprevious documents, this report first,set out the requirements that wereneeded for the project’s linked data‘demonstrator;’and second, gavean overview of how the demonstratorwould be created and developedduring the rest of the project.

Linked Data DemonstratorStarting from a selected subset of data,the experimentation consisted in:mapping from MINT (LIDO) to RDF,setting up and populating a repository,enriching the data by linking(e.g. to DbPedia).

Public-PrivatePartnershipLeader: EDITEUR,UK

The main objective in this field wasto explore the state of the art in themanagement of metadata in the privatesector, and to outline the benefit toEuropeana of interoperability with theprivate sector.The primary outputs of WorkPackage 4 are its three planned deliverables:

Best Practice Report – PublicPrivate PartnershipThis report comprehensively describedstandard identifiers and metadata used todescribe the outputs of the commercialmedia industries – books, film & TV, recordedmusic and photography – with a viewto integration with heritage sector data,so that in-copyright, in-commercematerials can be discovered andaccessed reliably through Europeana.

Specification of the technologies chosenPartner EDItEUR is also the standards bodymaintaining and developing ONIX for Books,the product information format forthe global book trade supply chain.They produced a detailed semanticmapping of ONIX for Books 3.0.1 to theLIDO heritage data schema used in LinkedHeritage, facilitating a substantialcontribution to semantic interoperabilitybetween public and private sectors.

Specification of legal/licensing environmentThis report detailed the key legal andcommercial concepts for private publicpartnerships with the commercial mediasectors.These concepts were as follows:• Copyright status of items of metadata;

database right; the commercial value ofproduct data and services built around it

• Difficulties inherent in“open” licencesfor sharing databases

• Potential approaches to a compromiselicence using the existing Europeanaframework

• Case studies drawn from conversationwith a range of smaller and largercompanies across the EU

• Recommended business modelsin future commercial sector partnershipwith Europeana

Expertise and networking• Research and development in Linked Data

for bibliographic descriptions, whichdiscussed the opportunities of LinkedData in Libraries.

• Network of potential commercial sectordata providers, which prepared the groundfor future projects by opening dialogueconcerning commercial contributions tothe Europeana project.

TerminologyLeader:KMKG,BelgiumColeader:MCC, France

This working group addressed the large gapbetween the actual state of terminologymanagement in cultural institutions, andthe skills and means necessary to deliverthese vocabularies in a standardised format.This required addressing the topic ofterminology through an array of tasks,from identifying the needs of terminologymanagement in the cultural and publishingsector, to implementing and testinga terminology platform as a softwareintegrated format. The latter wasaccomplished by the successful developmentof a prototype ofTerminology ManagementPlatform (TMP) that allowed for the creationand updating of a network of multilingualcross-domain thesauri and controlledvocabularies in a collaborative way.1

The working group also created a multilingualLIDO event type terminology that has beenreviewed by the LIDO Working Group and willbecome an official recommendation forthe LIDO standard.2 In order to capitalise onthe successful completion of the work packagegoals, dissemination and training activitieswere carried out:• The working group provided guidelines,

recommendations and training onterminology management, and alsopublished the booklet “Your terminologyas part of the semantic web.Recommendations for designand management”.3

• Additionally,dissemination and training eventswere organised:a training workshop in Paris(20/09/2012) was organised on the principlesof the semantic web where the beta releaseof the Terminology Management Platformwas presented and tested by the participants.

1 Beta version available on www.culture-terminology.org2 http://terminology.lido-schema.org/eventType3 English: http://www.linkedheritage.eu/getFile.php?id=244;

French: http://www.linkedheritage.eu/getFile.php?id=355

Coordination of ContentLeader:CREF CYI,CyprusColeader: ICCU, Italy

The objective was to facilitate the aggregation of over3 million digital content items into Europeana belongingo GLAMs and other memory institutions.This goal wasaccomplished through the completion of the following tasks:

• Implementing smooth workflow for the mappingand aggregation activities.This included interactionbetween the Europeana OperationsTeam, the workpackage leaders,and all content providers.

• Assisting and training of content providersin the aggregation process.

• Maintaining the quality of the content for Europeana.This involved frequent feedback from the Europeanateam,who provided valuable comments on howto improve the ingestion process.

Technical IntegrationLeader:NTUA,Greece

The central objectives were to integrate the technicalcomponents necessary for the Linked Heritage aggregation,to make this platform available online for training, validationand for the large-scale contribution of content to Europeana,to document programming interfaces for the integration oftechnical results and interoperability with external systems,and to operate the aggregation and publication, supportingongoing requirement analysis.

These goals were accomplished by the completionof the following tasks:• Creation of an online platform for the Linked

Heritage aggregation (MINT system customizedfor Linked Heritage).

• The establishment of metadata interoperabilitybetween content providers data sourcesand the LIDO-based Linked Heritage repository.

• Creation of a Metadata gatewayfor transformation to established standardsand remediation.

• Delivery of Metadata to Europeanaand the Linked Data demonstrator.

the aggregation workflow through mint

Harvesting,Delivery

Import,Parsing,Indexing

Versioning SemanticMapping

ValueMapping,

NormalizazionEnrich Export

Publish

DeliveredData

StructuredIndexed Data

Data withreapplied

enrichmentInteroperableSemantics

InteroperableStructure

EuropeanaEnabledData

Presentation & Search

Analysis & Statistics

Quality Control

Re-Iterating Process

Screenshot of the MINT platform:mapping tool

The Learning ObjectsPlanning and implementation of a set of learning objectsaiming to provide users with an entry-level knowledgeof the subjects.The LO model, HTML based, was designedboth to provide users with an interactive approach andto be easily translated into the Partners’native languages.It could also include text, video, audio and subtitles.

All the software programs used for the production of the LOswere Free Software/Open Source (GNU Project and/or OSI definition).

Phaidra for the Preservationof LinkedHeritage Learning objectsandTrainingmaterials

All the Learning Objects and trainingmaterials have been preserved inPHAIDRA (Permanent Hosting, Archivingand Indexing of Digital Resourcesand Assets), the platform for long-termmanagement and archiving of digitalobjects designed by the Universityof Vienna and adopted by the PaduaLibrary System in 2010 as partof a collaboration agreement and jointventure for software development.

Training and DisseminationLeader:UNIPD, Italy (training)Coleader: ICCU, Italy (dissemination)

Training activities were designed, developed, andimplemented for comprehensive training programmesdealing with the most relevant topics of the project.Significant results includes:

TheVirtual Learning EnvironmentRealization of a Virtual Learning Environment basedon Moodle, a free open source PHP web applicationfor producing modular internet-based courses.

Training ProgrammeDefinition of a tailored Training Programme availableas an e-learning facility and focusing on key aspectsof the project (Europeana, aggregation, metadata standards,linked data, permanent identifiers, multilingualterminologies, public-private partnerships).The training Programme comprises by four modulesspecifically targeted to the following user groups:cultural institutions, decision makers, teachersand researchers, library and information scienceprofessionals, market players.Each module provides a set of topics suitablefor each target group of users.Each topic is linked to a learning package which includes:case studies and training materials, bibliographyand, for some topics, also a Learning Object withassessment and evaluation questionnaires.

Printed Publications

Linked Heritage and its partners havefeatured widely in printed publications,appearing in educational booklets,academic journals and scientific articles.

Terminology Education BookletThe booklet,Your Terminology As A PartOf The SemanticWeb RecommendationsFor Design AndManagement,was publishedin the initial phase of the project.With over 1,500 copies distributedat dissemination events, and over 4,500copies downloaded from the project websitein total, the booklet has served as a usefultool for those addressing the complicatedissue of terminology in cultural heritageand linked data. Following the successfulFrench translation, Hungarian and Italianversions will soon be available.

GeocodedDigital Cultural ContentFollowing the fruitful memorandum ofunderstanding between the Indicate projectand Linked Heritage, another publicationhas been printed:Geocoded Digital CulturalContent, by Franc J. Zakrasjek and VlastaVodeb.This publication addresses the centralissue of digital geographic coordinates,which can serve as incredibly valuablegeographic descriptions.They allow fora far greater user experience, where culturalportals can provide information aboutoverlapping cultural content at the samelocation but originating from differentsources at different times.This study investigates the possibilitiesand approaches regarding the use ofe-infrastructure in geo-coded digital culture.

Uncommon CultureProfessional journal (ISSN 2083-0599(online); 2082-6923 (print)) directedby ICIMISS, was born during theAthena Project. It provides uniqueperspectives on a rich varietyof cultural activities in Europe.Examining cultural institutionsand their collections, this magazinegives new insight into diverse culturalactivities. During the Linked HeritageProject, two issues were edited:• From closed doors to open gates• Collections development.

www.uncommonculture.orgwww.linkedheritage.eu/index.php?en/181/publications

Linked Heritage on theWeb

Linked Heritage has gained a strong presenceon the web, utilising its own website as well asfeaturing on a variety of important sites in thecultural heritage community. Below is a selectionof the project’s online activities:

ProjectWebsiteThe project website serves as the centrepieceof the Linked Heritage online effort. Featuringpartner profiles, project information, anddissemination publications, it provides a usefulportal to understanding both Linked Heritageand the wider cultural heritage community.Since its creation in May 2011, the site has receivedover 30,000 unique visitors and been populatedwith dozens of project deliverables, text and mediapresentations and informative guides aboutdata aggregation and cultural content.

Michael CultureWebsiteThe Michael Culture Websiteserves as a Europe-wide networkfor the valorisation of culturalcontent.The Linked Heritageproject features heavily on thesite’s homepage, with a permanentlink and button directingvisitors towards the LinkedHeritage Wiki.The Michael Culture websiteshowcases Linked HeritagePartners, where they discuss theirmain challenges.

www.linkedheritage.eu www.michael-culture.eu

DigitalMeetsCulture ShowcaseThe project currently features on thedigitalmeetsculture site, an importantonline magazine in the digital culturalheritage area featured by partner Promoterand dedicated to the themes of the digitaltechnologies applied to cultural heritageand the arts.The online magazine isbecoming increasingly popular, with over50,000 visitors and 100,000 pages visitedin the last year. Linked Heritage has a buttonpermanently featured on the homepage,providing easy access to information aboutthe project, including the latest news,documents and over half a dozenhighlighted articles. Linked Heritagealso features in the DigitalMeetsCultureNewsletters, which are distributed to over4,000 readers.

Web 2.0A Linked Heritage Wiki was also set upto support the activities on terminologies.This site offers generic information aboutthe objectives of the working group, as well astechnical information about the project.

Several videos have been created featuringpartner members, showcasing their activities.These videos have been hosted on the Vimeoonline video platform, and have beenembedded on the project website andthe Michael Culture website.

The project utilised a social media aggregator– Scoop.it – which allows for users to bedirected quickly to the content that relatesto their favourite topic.

Linked Heritage is also present on Linkedin.www.digitalmeetsculture.net

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contactsProject coordinatorRosa CaffoMinistero per i beni e le attività culturaliIstituto centrale per il catalogo unicodelle biblioteche italiane (ICCU)viale Castro Pretorio, 105 • 00185 Roma • Italiat 39 06 49210427 • f 39 06 4959302info@linkedheritage.org •www.linkedheritage.eu

Technical coordinatorAntonella FresaPromoter s.r.l.fresa@promoter.itwww.digitalmeetsculture.net/heritage-showcases/linked-heritage/

Coordination of standardsand technologies forthe enrichment of Europeana