Aligning library-domain metadata with the Europeana Data Model

Sally CHAMBERS

Valentine CHARLES

ELAG 2011, Prague

Presentation outline

• The library domain landscape

• The Europeana Data Model (EDM)

• How libraries can benefit from EDM?

• Future steps

The library landscape

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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

The Europeana Data Model (EDM): in collaboration with the libraries domain

The European Library is a portal offering access tothe bibliographic, digital and full-text resources ofthe 49 national libraries of Europe in 35 languages.

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

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

Now: the Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE)

The rationale behind EDM

EDMMetadata interoperability

Standards

Consensus

Domain-knowledge

Users

The rationale behind EDM: principles

• 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: 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

The general picture: where are the libraries?

European information space

MuseumLibraries

Archives

owl:sameAs

skos:narrowerMatch

skos:exactMatch

The general picture: where are the libraries?

Europeana

The general picture: where are the libraries?

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

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)

The structure of the model: classes

A group of things that have common properties e.g. web resources.

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.

Our example

One record in oai_dc format

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.

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

Properties for the Web Resource (ens:WebResource)

• Information Resources that have at least one Web Representation and at least a URI.

Properties for the Web Resource (ens:WebResource)

The structure of the model: classes

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.

Properties for the aggregation (ore:Aggregation)

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

Contextual resources (Place, Time, Agent, Concept)

The structure of the model: classes

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

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.

Europeana as a distinct metadata provider

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

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

Representation of two resources packages

Allows a better (re)presentation of complex objects

Enriching the metadata

ens:AgentVIAF ID:24616821 Epitoma historiarum

Philippicarum Pompei Trogi

dc:creator

Enriching the metadata

ens:AgentVIAF ID:24616821 Epitoma historiarum

Philippicarum Pompei Trogi

dc:creator

Beyond metadata: full-text content

Future steps

1. Understand the Europeana Data Model

2. Explore how we can apply the Europeana Data Model to library metadata

3. Validate the draft Europeana Data Model for libraries with real-world metadata

4. Implement the Europeana Data Model for libraries with metadata from national, university and public libraries

5. Create library-specific documentation and training materials

Documentation

• Europeana Data Model Primer (v5.1)

• Europeana Data Model Specification (v5.2)• http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/technicaldocu

ments/

• Follow the EDM prototyping: • http://europeanalabs.eu/wiki/EDMPrototyping

Thank you!

Valentine CHARLES: valentine.charles@kb.nl

Sally CHAMBERS: sally.chambers@kb.nl