Europeana and LOD: Enhancing Jewish and

Israeli Heritage Digital Contents

EVA/Minerva Conference at Harvard University April, 13-14 2015 Judaica Division , Harvard University Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dov Winer Scientific Manager, Judaica Europeana

Coordinator, MINERVA Israel Cultural Heritage Digitisation Forum

Abstract:

Digitisation initiatives began due to long term preservation concerns.

Questions concerning their impact have now come to the fore: “The

measurable outcomes arising from the existence of a digital resource that

demonstrate a change in the life or life opportunities of the community for

which the resource is intended.” Jewish and Israeli digital resources can now

be enhanced with relevant encyclopedias and controlled vocabularies through

a LOD approach. The resulting knowledge grid can help bridge the gap

between the digital resources and the knowledge of the intended communities

of users. It will expand their application in narratives, scholarly research,

higher education, K12, cultural tourism, genealogy and more.

50 Years of Harvard Judaica

Digital Contents: Israeli and Jewish

The Impact of digitised contents

Some examples of high impact initiatives

Common Data Model for Content Description

Judaica Linked Data: providing context to Jewish Digitised

Contents a possible Jewish Knowledge Grid.

Outline

Digitised Contents

Judaica Europeana Partners

~millions+

digital cultural

objects

Jewish Digitised Content

Jewish Digitised Content

Jewish Digitised Content

Impact

Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University

Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at

Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University

Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at

Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University

Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at

Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

Slide from the presentation Value, Impact & the Benefits of Digitisation for University

Collections by Simon Tanner from King’s College London, COIMBRA Workshop at

Edinburgh University Library (2013): http://tinyurl.com/2013Tanner

Examples of Digital Impact

Common Data Model for

Content Description

Common Data Model

Outline

”

Judaica Linked Data

Who? What? When? Where?

Controlled vocabularies: hubs of

Jewish Knowledge in the

Structured Web

Jewish encyclopedias: CONTEXT

Encyclopedia Judaica

Encyclopedia of Russian Jewry

http://www.rujen.ru/

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/

Rav Zeev Vagner

Josh Kopelman

Establishing a Jewish Knowledge Grid

Joint project:

Named Entity Recognition in the text of the articles in the journals of the

Jewish Studies collection of JSTOR

Names of persons, organizations, locations, expressions of times, events

Linking the names to the entries in relevant vocabularies and

Encyclopedias

Linking back the entries in the Encyclopedias and vocabularies to

relevant articles in JSTOR Jewish Studies journals.

MISSING:

Yad Vashem Jewish Place Names

VIAF National Library of Israel

IMAGINE from the Israel Museum

Jerusalem

Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic

World Online (BRILL)

Encyclopedia Judaica Online (GALE)

Judaica Europeana Vocabularies

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Thank you!

dov.winer@gmail.com