PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY - European Commissionec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/image/... ·...

Publishable Summary APEx project

PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY

Introduction

The Archives Portal Europe network of eXellence (APEx) project is a European ICTPSP project which ran from 1 March 2012 till 30 September 2015 including a seven month prolongation period. The APEx project followed the APEnet project that was aimed at aggregating archival content in Europeana and creating the Archives Portal Europe (APE). APEnet was initiated by the European Board of National Archivists (EBNA). APEx allowed for an important step toward providing access to European archival information independent from time and place for all users world-wide who are interested in European history.

APEx therefore builds on its predecessor’s steps by widening and deepening, improving and sustaining the delivery of archival content to the portal by:

- Expansion of the network of contributing archival institutions in Europe itself; - Improvement of the portal's throughput capacity, availability of more standards and

guidelines, tooling and support to the content providers to help them deliver their content; - Substantial improvements in the interoperability with Europeana; - Innovation in usability and Web 2.0 functionality to modernize content delivery; - Dissemination & training programs to drive aggregation on the national level and raise

awareness of archival content in Europe; - More archival content in the APE portal;


- Service the content provider and user; - Disseminate of knowledge/tools/experience (in- and outside the beneficiaries consortium; - Work together with as many (NA) archives institutes and cultural heritage organisations; - To sustain the entire results such as the (country managers) network, the technical

infrastructure, the collective of (national) archives in Europe and the portal into a Foundation: Stichting Archives Portal Europe Foundation with registered office in the municipality of The Hague.


Portal Initiative by EBNA and application in

2007

2008 EU Project

approval

Monitoring by EC

Apenet has built the APE Portal

and infrastructure

APEx has enhanced the Technical

Infrastructure of APE and increased

content

Collective of European (national)

archives united

APEx project 2012 -2015

APEF established 27 October 2014

APEF took over APE per 1 October

2015

APEnet project2009-2012

APEx is the biggest (archive) aggregator

of Europeana

Growth of APE USERS

Advertising and continuation

of the Portal and network of Country

managers

USERS of APE

Growth of APE content

providers

European Board of National Archivists

(EBNA)

USERS of Europeana

Visualisation of the life circle of the Archive Portal Europe


Summary of results The APEx project exists of a European collaboration between 33 archival and research organisations from 30 countries and a growing over eighty-five hundreds participating and content providing archives, including the Historical Archives of the European Union.

This makes APEx the biggest cooperation project in Europe. This project is a very good example of what can be achieved when institutions work together with a common goal and a shared vision on how to best service users. The APEx project is also by far the largest cooperation in the archival domain in Europe. The result being the portal APE; giving users a single point of online access to the greatest amount of European archival (meta)data ever. To accomplish this achievement the project partners performed an enormous amount of work by establishing and strengthening the network of the European archives institutes forming a tight collective, which allowed them to expand the network of content providers. Especially due to the country managers network, the backbone of the collective, the projects content providers increased resulting in much more content in APE leading to more users of the Archives Portal Europe.

Excellent network of Country managers

The country managers network is the linking pin between the content provide rand APEX / APEF


Corporation with Europeana The archive collective will continue the aggregation towards the Europeana portal and work with Europeana to overcome the different organisational, cultural and technical problems relating to the presentation of Archival metadata in Europeana. The outcome of this APEx – Europeana cooperation so far had led to APEx being the first content provider to Europeana to deliver data in fully hierarchical Europeana Data Model. Also is APEx the biggest archival content provider and one of the biggest overall aggregators to Europeana, giving the archival sector a solid place in the online access point to European culture and history.

Biggst archive aggregator of Europeana

The cooperation with Europeana will not stop with the ending of the APEx project, but will be continued by APEF. APEF is becoming an expert hub in the Europeana DSI infrastructure and due to that combining forces with other cultural heritage institutions and organisations. APEF will also go on with the APEx motto ‘reaching out to the outside (Cultural) world’, where we’ve got in touch with various other projects, within the (digital) archival field and user groups to further expand the network around the Archives Portal Europe Foundation with new voices and perspectives.

Archives PortaL Europe

European Archives Group andEuropean Branche of National Archivists

Europeana

European legislation:

Linked open data

Consortium of European

National Archives/AoA members

Functionalities:Reuse of tools (generic)

Re-use of Technical infrastructure

Use of network CMs

Users:

Functionalities:Archive aggregator

CEF partnercooperation

Network of Country managers

Stichting Archives Portal Europe Foundation

LegendaAdministration/

legislationTechnical

InfrastuctureNetwork

infrastructurePossible cooperation

Data stream/use

Content providers

APEF – Europeana corporation


The who were connected to the project. enormous potential of the results of the APEx project surpassed the expectations of all whose

Overview of the content statistics Horizontal growth to 33 Countries in the collective, ,Vertical extension to 5.813 Institutions (EAG), 428.328 Finding aids (FA), 242.723.855 Descriptive units (DU), 210.296.405 Digital objects (DAO)

The impact of the portal on users, beneficiaries, content providers and a part of the (European) Digital Society is huge. Due to the use of internationally accepted sets of archive standards for the presentation of archival material online expanding the search options in the portal and thereby increasing the reach of the portal for its users. Furthermore APEx derived and facilitates the transfer of the (digitised and digital) archival material to Europeana via the back-end of the Archives Portal Europe. This enabled Europeana’s end-users to access archival information as part of the common European cultural heritage and together with content from libraries, museums and audio-visual collections. With the combination of constituting a research and publication platform for European archival heritage on the one hand, and acting as the international archives domain aggregator for Europeana on the other hand, APEx extends the possibility for users to find the information that they need. What APE has to offer! APE has to offer a lot for a variety of users such as government and industry. The unique selling points of APE are very divers: It offers European archive institutes a platform of potential hundreds of millions of users to present their holding. The collaboration strengthens the archive domain due to sharing expertise, knowledge, experience, skills and even staff. The portal contains a very good and reliable technical infrastructure The collective in total contains a great network not only of archival institutes but also the fine-grained network of country managers being the first point of contact between content provider and the portal offering free workshops, tools and service. The APE portal contains a huge amount of authentic reliable data that can be used as data in it but also as row material for creating information products and apps etc.


They offer the opportunity of harmonizing metadata which facilitate interoperability and exchange of data with other systems or projects. APEx offers tools and methodology free of charge due to the creation by public means. APEx is the biggest archive aggregator of Europeana and one of the top three of overall aggregators to Europeana. It holds and offers an enormous amount of information, particularly context and insight related to shared European history Single point gives access to ‘millions of stories not yet told’ waiting for exploration by users. The portal is a place to learn about the use for context-based information and how archives work and can be used. A germinating platform for user questions, storytelling and exchange of knowledge Re-use of infrastructure offers ‘value for money’ free to be used for industry, associates and partners Users of APE Due to this all APE has a great variety of different users with different needs and wishes such as: Professional historical researchers Justice cases searchers and litigant citizens, the right holder and seeking citizen. As a memory keeper of the government itself Amateur researchers and people who are interesting in (family) history The Creative industry can find and (re)use raw (historical) material. Publishers to publish stories not told Writers can use the content for backing up purpose authentic historical data and events. Specific user communities can use the content for hobbyists with fascination for items such as cars, fashion, railroads, etc. Students Scientists Professional and amateur Genealogists Companies with legal obligation to hold information (banks, insurers, medical) Non-profit institutions with a legal obligation to hold information Companies and institutions that wish to publish their private archives Advantages and effects of APEx results and activities Institutional participating in the APE provides enormous possibilities to see one’s content within a wider context and therefore from a new perspective as well as taking advantage of new ways to present and grant access to an archives’ holdings. The value of having (hundreds) of millions of digitised analogue archival descriptions and objects included in the inventories of over 5800 (archival) institutions participating from all over Europe available via the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana at any time and any place is priceless already. And allow archival institutions to open up to an as heterogeneous as possible– and to attract possibly new – audience such as students, teachers to tell the European story as well of users who are just interested in history or family or personal history. There lies even more benefit in the growing and active professional network of cultural organisations holding collections around the Archives Portal Europe. Only this collaboration, this collective, for a common goal enables all partners to join each other on standardisation activities across borders, to “benchmark” their own workflows, ways of describing and ways of presenting against that of others and to try their content with new functionalities that might be available in the Archives Portal Europe but not yet in their own systems. Not only will this be an improvement for the archival institutions themselves, but also for their users who eventually will find more and richer information on archival material, connected with more functionalities, in more – and sometimes perhaps unexpected – places. This very complex APEx project with all his problems to overcome has delivered an excellent portal, website, a sound network (collective) of European archives institutions, country managers network, tools, handbooks, articles etc. And more than that after the project finished the collective of European (national)


archives and Country Managers network lives on trough the Archives Portal Europe Foundation (APEF). The EC investment in both APEnet and APEx will be thus continued by the collective by the foundation which gives a good value on investment. APE provides different advantages to different users. The gained benefits are depending on the position or needs of the users. Some of the benefits however can be pointed out generally. Benefits users Information that can be used independent from time and place. Easy access to an enormous amount of European archival information It provides an overview of archive holdings of over 30 countries presenting their holdings in one single access point. Due to the huge content a variety of accessible information with a wider context are available for anyone. New ways of searching and researching in archival material More European related connection of search items helping the user to find unexpected information The content is partly translated by the participating archives who offering translation in EAG It gives an overview of the archive landscape per archive and or country with contact information which guide the user simply to their wanted information. Easier to find relations across European content providers leading the user to more (unknown) information to more and richer information on archival material to find, in perhaps unexpected – places Benefits content providers Attracts more and new users a to the Content Providers website (holdings) It gives the possibility to use APE as a presentation channel if the (archive) institute doesn’t have a website of their own. It gains the possibility of using and or getting generic tools for free. Use of open international accepted ‘open’ archives standards Free Technical guidance and service via country manager. Showcase/ resonation platform for (new) user (potential of 500 million users) Presenting new ways of and granting access to archives holdings to users Presenting holdings not only internationally but also local, regional and national All beneficiaries are able of getting support of the collective. The collective will act as a sounding board. Being part of an international network in which the sum is bigger than its parts alone. Possibility of (re)-use of an up to date and actualized infrastructure for free Anticipating and cooperating on further developments such as Linked Open Data, Persistent Identifiers etc. Benefits for industry Hiring developers during the Apex project and by the start of some APEF activities generates work for the software industry (and hardware). Furthermore APEF has hired staff. During the APEx project some companies were hired to make products like the business and MarCom Plan. The corporation with software suppliers and APEx/APEF generate work for those companies as well. Benefits due to reuse Reuse of tools, systems, infrastructure and materials are very efficient. The generic tool which is in the process of creating by APEF is an example of reuse of a tool, and reuse of energy and thinking power. Creation of an API in corporation between APEF and DTR is very helpful for other associates of APEF. For Switzerland (cantons), Belgium (documents in French and Flemish language) and the Nordic Countries who wants to focus combined material into specific portals, this API is a value for money thing, a concrete result of APEx/APEF. Creating this API is effective and efficient for both the DTR project and APEF. Reuse of knowledge due to the experience that the former APEx developer and Technical Coordinator, both staff of APEF right now brings in


Investments by associates The associates of APEF, the former ESC Board of Apex, are keeping the APEx infrastructure intact with the aim to bring it to the next level are willing to invest because they believe in the product, the power of the collective and the possibility that AP offers them and the users. The associates of APEF invest by: Paying a fee Contribute in-kind due to: Facilitate a country manager Be an ambassador for APEF Some of them appoint a manager for the Governing Board Installing thematically working groups to share knowledge and to make new products, tackle problems or explore possibilities. Return of investments associates It gives those tools and understanding to for fill their role as a national aggregator: for their own collection and serving other national (archive) institutions. Sharing Tools & services (as part of a collective) It builds up experience and knowledge in new ways of presenting / granting access to their own and other holdings for possible corporation. Associates can use generic tools for free; they can re-use for example the API (DTR / APEF) As a collective more influence within the EU shared policy of EBNA/EAG the EAG/EBNA meetings also functioned as a sounding board. Supporting digital service to European citizens All of this plus the foundation makes the whole APE ecosystem a strong partner for corporation within the digital cultural heritage world. Return of investment EU Both APEnet and APEx investments of the EC were money well spent. The investment in both projects has value for money and doesn’t end by closing the APEx project. The whole of infrastructure lives on via APEF, so the European citizen will continue to profit of the information stored in the portal. The information facility for users will be continued by the foundation without any budget from the EC. It will support the portfolio of the EU strategy of facilitate the Digital Society by giving simple crossover access to European (historical) information for free without borders. Cooperation with others Cooperation is imperative. No project or organisation can handle the technical changes and needs. The scope of skill required and knowledge of the technical infrastructure is wide and divers. Sharing knowledge, tools, software and experience is essential in order to increase effectiveness and efficiently. APEx has already cooperated with other projects, programs, portals and organizations such as CLARIAH, Europeana, European Historical Archives, TEL, EOGAN, CENDARI, Monasterium, Family Search etc. APEF will continue to reach out to others.

PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY - European Commissionec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/image/... ·...

Documents

Transcript of PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY - European Commissionec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/image/... ·...