Europeana:
Europe's Digital Library, Museum and Archive
Ashley Carter and Dana Sagona
Background & Purpose
• Launched in 2008
• Primary focus: cultural
heritage from European
Institutions
• Goal: "making Europe's
cultural and scientific heritage
accessible to the public”
• A "cultural project" not a
"commercial undertaking”
Who owns, manages, and funds
Europeana?
• Owned by the Europeana Foundation
• Separate institutions decide on what materials they
wish to contribute.
• Around 1500 institutions have contributed to
Europeana
▫ additional support (IT issues, etc.) from 180
heritage and knowledge organizations and IT
experts across Europe
• The project is funded by the European
Union/European Commission
▫ based in the National Library of the Netherlands
• Funding programs normally only cover 50-100% of
the total costs and do not include overhead.
▫ Many European countries contribute to these costs.
▫ Other funds must be raised
Resources
• Over 15 million digital resources from Europe's museums, libraries,
archives and audio-visual collections (and plans to reach 30 million
resources by 2015):
▫ Images - paintings, drawings, maps, photos and pictures of museum
objects
▫ Texts - books, newspapers, letters, diaries and archival papers
▫ Sounds - music and spoken word from cylinders, tapes, discs and radio
broadcasts
▫ Videos - films, newsreels and TV broadcasts
• Examples: the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and objects about
the Berlin Wall.
• Are resources downloadable?
▫ Not directly from Europeana
▫ Europeana consists of contributed materials from many institutions, and
thus access to downloading or using content is always dependent upon
the guidelines of the institution which contributed the object.
Browsing Features
• Basic and advanced search on homepage
• Browsing option on bottom to search what
others are currently searching
Advanced Search
Search Results
• Narrow results by:
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Provider (institution)
Language
Country
Date
Rights (free/paid access)
Type (media)
Search Results
• "Browse through Time" retrieves your search
results and returns them in the form of a
timeline. - Berlin Wall
• Registered users can:
▫ Save items and searches
▫ Tag items to organize in your "My Europeana"
interface
Metadata
• Standard Dublin Core elements plus several
additional DC elements
• 12 additional elements created by Europeana
Metadata
• Image/Video/Sound
▫ Title, Date, Creator, Description, Language,
Format, Source, Rights, Provider, Identifier
(hosting URL), Subject, Type, Relation
• Text
▫ Title, Date, Creator, Description, Language,
Format, Source, Europeana rights, Rights, Data
Provider, Provider, Identifier, Publisher,
Subject, Type, Relation
Image Metadata
Video Metadata
Text Metadata
Europeana Rights
• “This item is protected by copyright and/or related
rights. This item is accessible without charge, but its
use is subject to the licensing conditions set
by the organization giving access to it.”
• “Unless expressly stated otherwise in the licensing
conditions, you are free to make any of the acts
permitted by your national copyright and related
rights act, including browsing, printing and
making a copy for your own personal
purposes.”
Access
Who?
How?
• General public
▫ primarily in Europe (though
there is international appeal)
• Students
• Historians
• Researchers
• First returned item for searches
on "Europe + digital library"
• Find Europeana on Facebook,
Twitter, and LinkedIn (if you are a
"cultural heritage professional")
Access
• Pros:
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Simple, user-friendly basic search box
Simple advanced search
Easy to browse search results
Direct connection to hosting site
Access Issues
• Searches only look at the languages in which the
objects are stored
▫ For example, searching 'treaty' will only yield
English material
• Language abbreviations not explained
▫ Mul? (multi-lingual)
• Being redirected to the hosting Web site may be
confusing
• Refine search bar – confusing collapsible menu
• Timeline search view has issues
Potential Issues
• Hosting site may no longer host the file
• Hosting site may not allow users from certain
countries
Europeana and Our Class
• Think about Spanish speakers in Austin using
our field guide (translating search results)
• Many institutions contributing to our site
▫ Need to provide accurate metadata
▫ Ensure rights are specified