Aligning library-domain metadata with the Europeana Data Model

1. Aligning library-domain metadata with the Europeana Data Model Sally CHAMBERS Valentine CHARLES ELAG 2011, Prague

2. Presentation outline • The library domain landscape • The Europeana Data Model (EDM) • How libraries can benefit from EDM? • Future steps

3. PL IT EN FR DE The library landscape

4. The Europeana Data Model (EDM): An initiative from: “A digital library that is a single, direct and multilingual access point to the European cultural heritage.” European Parliament, 27 September 2007 “A unique resource for Europe's distributed cultural heritage… ensuring a common access to Europe's libraries, archives and museums.” Horst Forster, Director, Digital Content & Cognitive Systems Information Society Directorate, European Commission

5. The Europeana Data Model (EDM): in collaboration with the libraries domain The European Library is a portal offering access to the bibliographic, digital and full-text resources of the 49 national librariesof Europe in 35 languages.

6. The Europeana Data Model (EDM): in collaboration with the library-domain

7. Now: the Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE) • Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE) developed for the prototype (now on v3.4) • A Dublin core-based application profile • Cross-domain schema for heterogeneous data • Not to capture the full semantics of provider’s data • 37 Dublin Core terms – to describe the objects • for search and display • 14 Europeana terms - used to support portal functionalities • Elements to be added by providers • Elements added internally by the Europeana ingestion team

8. Now: the Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE)

9. Consensus EDM Metadata interoperability Standards Users Domain-knowledge The rationale behind EDM

10. New data structure for Europeana which moves beyond ESE • Transcends domain specific metadata standards • Framework for collecting, connecting and enriching metadata: facilitates the participation to the Semantic Web • Preserve original data while still allowing for interoperability The rationale behind EDM: principles

11. The rationale behind EDM: requirements • 1. Distinction between “provided object” (painting, book, • program) and digital representation • 2. Distinction between object and metadata record describing an object . • 3. Allow for multiple records for same object, containing • potentially contradictory statements about an object • 4. Support for objects that are composed of other objects • 5. Standard metadata format that can be specialized • 6. Standard vocabulary format that can be specialized • 7. EDM should be based on existing standards

12. European information space The general picture: where are the libraries?

13. skos:narrowerMatch owl:sameAs Libraries Museum Archives The general picture: where are the libraries? skos:exactMatch

14. The general picture: where are the libraries? Europeana

15. What is EDM? • Based on an open, cross-domain semantic web-based framework • EDM has been specified with an RDF model • It uses Dublin Core for metadata representation • Specialization of 15 original DC elements • And for backward compatibility, cf. ESE • Can be specialized itself • Used in the richest way possible: Pointers to resources • OAI-ORE for organisation of metadata about an object • SKOS for vocabulary organisation

16. EDM: main notions • EDM allows the distinctinction between: • an object: which is the resource being described • a digital representation: digital form of the object with a Web address • These two information form an Aggregation • organizes object information from a particular provider (museum, archive, library)

17. The structure of the model: classes A group of things that have common properties e.g. web resources.

18. The structure of the model: properties (without ESE properties) An attribute or characteristic of a resource e.g. a member of the class Agent will have the property of Name.

19. Our example

20. One record in oai_dc format

21. Properties for the provided cultural heritage object (ens:ProvidedCHO) • This means that they are the attributes of the source cultural heritage object itself, not the digital representation of it.

22. Properties for the provided cultural heritage object (ens:ProvidedCHO)

23. Properties for the Web Resource (ens:WebResource) • Information Resources that have at least one Web Representation and at least a URI.

24. Properties for the Web Resource (ens:WebResource)

25. The structure of the model: classes

26. Properties for the aggregation (ore:Aggregation) • The set of resources related to a single cultural heritage object that collectively represent that object in Europeana. Such set consists of: all descriptions about the object that Europeana collects from (possibly different) content providers, including thumbnails and other forms of abstractions, as well as of the description of the object Europeana builds.

27. Properties for the aggregation (ore:Aggregation)

28. Contextual resources (Place, Time, Agent, Concept) • These classes are used to produce enriched descriptions, especially when controlled vocabularies are existing and used by institutions for instance ens:Agent

29. Contextual resources (Place, Time, Agent, Concept)

30. The structure of the model: classes

31. The structure of the model: properties (without ESE properties)

32. Europeana as a distinct metadata provider • Europeana is: • taking data from multiple providers • which may be about the same resource • giving multiple views on the same resource • adding its own data about a resource (enrichment) • The notion of proxy: • specific to a given provider • represent the description of the provided object as seen from the perspective of that specific provider.

33. Europeana as a distinct metadata provider

34. How libraries can benefit from EDM? • EDM allows a richer resource discovery • Improves visualisation of complex data • Enrichs data through the creation of new associations between both search terms and metadata • Facilitates libraries’ participation to the Semantic Web • Transcends domain-specific metadata standards

35. Preserves the richness of original data Our example: a second record in EAD

36. Representation of two resources packages

37. Allows a better (re)presentation of complex objects

38. Enriching the metadata dc:creator ens:Agent VIAF ID:24616821 Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi

39. Enriching the metadata dc:creator ens:Agent VIAF ID:24616821 Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi

40. Beyond metadata: full-text content

41. Future steps Understand the Europeana Data Model Explore how we can apply the Europeana Data Model to library metadata Validate the draft Europeana Data Model for libraries with real-world metadata Implement the Europeana Data Model for libraries with metadata from national, university and public libraries Create library-specific documentation and training materials

42. Documentation • Europeana Data Model Primer (v5.1) • Europeana Data Model Specification (v5.2) • http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/technicaldocuments/ • Follow the EDM prototyping: • http://europeanalabs.eu/wiki/EDMPrototyping

43. Thank you! Valentine CHARLES: valentine.charles@kb.nl Sally CHAMBERS: sally.chambers@kb.nl