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Introduction

After a plea by six heads of European countries tothe President of the European Commission topromote the diverse culture of Europe online, in2005 the Conference of European NationalLibrarians (CENL) was asked to create a prototypedemonstrating the feasibility of bringing togetherdigital objects held in the cultural heritageinstitutions of Europe. The prototype was launchedto such wide acclaim in November 2008 that itcrashed under the amount of traffic. Since thattime, the prototype was maintained as a live siteand an operational service built and launched inthe summer of 2010. The portal at the end of 2010had 15 million objects from over 2,000 museums,libraries, archives and audio visual collectionsacross the 27 countries of the European Union.

The scope of Europeana

An interesting way to discover the scope ofEuropeana is not just to start with a person, but awhole movement. Or, in the case of Art Nouveau,a whole series of interconnected and cross-influencing movements.

For a brief and brilliant period at the end of the19th century, from around 1890 and tailing offbefore the First World War, domestic furnishing,decorative art, architecture and printing andpublishing, particularly advertising, were charac-terized by the curvilinear elegance, organic formsinspired by nature, and characteristic whiplashline of Art Nouveau (to use a generic term).

The homepage of the Europeana website(http://www.europeana.eu/portal/) invites thereader to explore with a click ‘paintings, music,films and books from Europe’s galleries, libraries,archives and museums’. In Figure 1, for example,we can see a mixture of objects, paintings and awork by Emile Gallé (1846-1904), a major force inthe French Art Nouveau movement 1; and fromRomania, a painting by another iconic Nouveaufigure, the Czech Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) ofthe actress Sarah Bernhardt2, whose posters, setsand costumes Mucha was commissioned to design.Bernhardt objects designed by Lalique and othersare also on Europeana.

Using the text tab, we can then select an image totake a closer look at a complete book from the period,a version of Snow White with colour plates, from

The cultural heritage of Europe:building the value proposition forEuropeanaBased on a breakout session held at the 33rd UKSG Conference, Edinburgh,April 2010

Europeana was launched, as a prototype, in November 2008. It givesaccess to the cultural heritage of Europe held in the museums, libraries,archives and audio visual collections. The subsequent launch of theoperational services in summer of 2010 necessitated a relook at theservices Europeana could usefully offer to its partners and stakeholders,i.e. what the value propositions are.This paper presents a snapshot of thepotential of Europeana through the story of Art Nouveau and the processof creating the value propositions to arrive at a Europeana strategic planfor the coming five years.

JILL COUSINSExecutive DirectorEDL FoundationNational Library of theNetherlands (KB)

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1906 3, in the National Library of the Netherlands.The book is fully digitized, as can be seen in Figure23, and the pervasion of Art Nouveau even down tofairy tales during this period is apparent.

Another book conforming to the Art Nouveaustyle, this time from the Biblioteca Catalunya inSpain, is Les Trois femmes de Flandres, produced inBelgium in 1905 (Figure 3).

Europeana’s reach, and the geographic spreadof the Art Nouveau movement, can be seen by theinclusion of treasures from the Baltic States Estoniaand Latvia. With around 800 Art Nouveau buildingsin the cultural centre of Riga, this poster5 by Baltic-German artist Bernhard Borchert (see Figure 4)marks the opening of the new City Art Museumthere in 1905.

Figure 1. Results of a search on ‘art nouveau’ (inset: ‘Vara’ by Alphonse Mucha)

Figure 2. Spread from a fully digitized 1906 Dutch copy of ‘Snow White’

Included in the film material on Europeana aretwo films from France celebrating Art Nouveaufrom the L’Ecole de Nancy, a key centre whoseartists included Daum, Majorelle and Gallé. Figure 5

shows one of these films held at the Institutnational d’audiovisuel in Paris6.

The term Art Nouveau is generally attributed tothe establishment of the German dealer Siegfried‘Samuel’ Bing’s shop, Maison de l’Art Nouveau,which opened in December 1895. A noted collectorand dealer of Japanese art, the stylistic techniquesof which – nature as a source, block colouring andnaturalistic designs including birds, insects andbotanical studies – were absorbed as influencesinto Art Nouveau. His shop was a focus for ArtNouveau designers and not just from France andthe rest of Europe. Bing was spurred on byAmerican Louis Comfort Tiffany to investigatedecorative art. Some of Tiffany’s work can be seenon Europeana7. (See Figure 6.)

In other centres in Europe, the name ‘Jugendstil’came from the German journal, Jugend (Youth: theillustrated weekly magazine of art and lifestyle of

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Figure 3. Cover of 1905 Belgian book, ‘Les Trois femmes de Flandres’

Figure 4. Poster for the Baltic Artists’ Painting Exhibition which

opened the new City Art Museum in Riga, Latvia, in 1905

Figure 5. Example of a French film from L’Ecole de Nancy, celebrating Art Nouveau

Munich). An example from the Museum ofFlensburg painted by Hans Christiansen (1866-1945), is shown in Figure 7.

As well as being able to compare styles andinterpretations of Art Nouveau in several countriesusing Europeana, we can study the work ofindividual artists, whether the straight, geometriclines of the objects and environments created byCharles Renee Mackintosh and the GlasgowSchool of Art in Scotland or the sinuous lines ofBelgian, Victor Horta.

The volume and variety of objects enables us toappreciate how this was a total artform with nodetail overlooked, such as in this beautiful doorhinge produced by one of Belgium’s leadingNouveau designers, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)9 (Figure 8).

In Austria, the Vienna Secession, founded in1897, with exponents such as Gustav Klimt, is alsowell represented in Europeana (see Figure 9, forexample10). This was a time of radical culturalactivity, artistically and musically. We can even

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Figure 6. One of several objects by Tiffany on Europeana, found using the country filter ‘France’ (inset: stemmed vase ‘bulbe d’oignon’)

Figure 7. Illustration and lettering by Hans Christiansen,

intended as a cover for an issue of ‘Jugend’

Figure 8. Art Nouveau door hinge for a bedroom, designed by

Gustave Serrurier-Bovy

hear (by clicking on a ‘sound’ icon viaEuropeana.eu) a classic piece of fin de siècle musicby Vienna resident Schoenburg, from Cite de laMusique in Paris11.

The potential of Europeana to connect in thevirtual world the treasures of our museums,libraries, archives and audio visual collectionsthroughout Europe has been illustrated using thestory of Art Nouveau.

The background

At the same time as launching the prototype, thelegal entity that has become the EuropeanaFoundation was set up. This is a foundation underDutch law with a Board made up of the pan-European Associations of Content Holders such asCENL, Association Cinémathèques Européennes,European Regional Branch of the InternationalCouncil on Archives, International Federation ofTelevision Archives, International Association ofSound and Audiovisual Archives and InternationalCouncil of Museums Europe. The Board appointsan Executive Committee responsible for thestrategic direction and legal compliance, whoappoint an Executive Director to manage a team of30–40, the portal and its associated projects. Morerecently, a Council of Content Providers andAggregators has been set up, with its own set ofelected Officers, who sit on the Europeana Boardand represent the needs of the domains, and

support and run working groups. This Councilincludes the Federation of European Publishers.

Funding is largely from EU project funds underthe CIP-IST/PCP Programme. This has beensupplemented with support from the Ministries ofCulture and Education of Member States, whoprovide matching funds to enable project partici-pation. Future funding is hoped to be morestructural in nature, thus removing the hugeoverhead participation in 21 projects delivers.

The vision

Europeana is a record of Europe’s journey.Through it, people can discover text, image andaudiovisual material, regardless of the country or institution it is held in. All that Europe hasconsidered worthy of keeping, of understanding,of studying – a vast resource of organized andtrustworthy knowledge – has the potential tobecome accessible through Europeana.

Launched as a proof of concept in 2008, with twomillion objects from 27 EU countries, Europeanaspent 2009 and 2010 creating an operational serviceand ingesting a critical mass of data from some1,500 providers across Europe. Together withcontent partners and aided by Europe’s leadingresearch universities, we now have a strong andvibrant network of museums, archives and libraries.

The EU vision of 2006 is partially achieved:

‘A common multilingual access point would make it possible to search Europe’s distributed – that is tosay, held in different places by different organisations– digital cultural heritage online.’

Council Communiqué, August 2006

This vision has widened beyond the creation ofdirect access to the aggregated material to includedistributing content into the workflow of theindividuals using the material, and acting as afacilitator in ensuring that copyright works betterin a web world, whilst engaging the user in theircultural heritage. The aim is to connect societythrough culture.

Value propositions

To create the value propositions for our partnersand stakeholders and hence a strategic plan for thecoming five years, 2010 saw a lot of work with

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Figure 9. ‘Les trois âges de la femme’ by Gustav Klimt, Galleria

nazionale d’arte Moderne, Rome

librarians, publishers, curators, archivists andcommercial partners to develop these propositionstogether.

The Business Model Canvas developed byOsterwalder and Pigneur 11 was used to sharpenour focus on our most important stakeholders:users, policymakers and market players and ourmain partner group, the European content providersand aggregators (see Figure 10) and understandtheir relationships with each other and the valuethat could be achieved.

Over a five-month period these stakeholdergroups were involved in the creation of valuepropositions to form a strategic plan for thecoming years for Europeana. The consultationprogramme comprised two elements:

1) a set of specific value propositions for each ofthe identified stakeholder groups, that wererated and commented on in an online con-sultation with various groups. These groupsincluded our User Test Panel, the Council ofContent Providers and Aggregators, the MemberStates Expert Group and market players.

‘The proposition is what makes the organizationdistinct; it serves to resolve customer problems andmeet customer needs.’

(Business Model Innovation Cultural Heritage,DEN Foundation/Kennisland, 2010)

2) five workshops were held with expert repre-sentatives from each stakeholder community totranslate the resulting value propositions intospecific activities. Nearly 70 people from theEuropeana network were involved in 30 hoursof passionate discussion. This was followed bya thorough analysis and synthesis of the results.

The process resulted in the following valuepropositions that Europeana could offer.The users valued:

■ trusted source ■ ease of use■ re-use■ in my workflow.

The content providers and aggregators valued:

■ visibility■ services■ revenue.

The policy-makers valued:

■ inclusion■ leadership■ education■ economic growth.

The market valued:

■ straightforward route to content ■ access to the network■ premium services ■ brand association.

The consultation also provided us with expertpredictions about our working environment in2011-2015. Social trends, evolving customer needsand changing economic and political factors wereidentified. These will determine the directionEuropeana takes in order to continue deliveringstakeholder value.

At the UKSG conference in 2010, a quick surveywas made to determine the value propositions thatEuropeana could deliver to the publisher. Thisresulted in the following:

■ new route to their content

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Figure 10. Business Model Canvas developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur

providers

partners

activities

resources

relationship

channels

stakeholders

valueproposition

?costs

Business Model Canvas developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur

benefits

policy

users

market

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■ new access to their content, e.g. search onVermeer will also bring up the published booksand articles

■ semantic linking and enrichment of data■ a European lobbyist for widescale digitization

and distribution of in-copyright material.

These are all areas of commitment in theEuropeana Strategic Plan 2011-201512 and the valuepropositions form the basis of the Europeanastrategy for the next five years. The following fourstrategic tracks represent the results of ourconsultation and analysis. They are the means bywhich Europeana will continue to deliver value toour stakeholder groups in the years 2011-2015.These four strategic tracks – aggregate, facilitate,distribute and engage – underpin Europeana’sfuture direction and business success. They arefully described in the Europeana Strategic Planand briefly below:

AggregateBuild the open trusted source for Europeancultural heritage content

■ source content that represents the diversity ofour cultural heritage

■ extend the network of aggregators■ improve the quality of the metadata.

Facilitate Support the cultural heritage sector throughknowledge transfer, innovation and advocacy

■ share knowledge among cultural heritageprofessionals

■ foster research and development of digitalheritage applications

■ strengthen Europeana’s advocacy role.

DistributeMake their heritage available to users whereverthey are, whenever they want it

■ upgrade the Europeana portal■ put content in the users’ workflow■ develop partnerships to deliver content in new

ways.

EngageCultivate new ways for users to participate in theircultural heritage

■ enhance the users’ experience

■ extend our social media programmes and useof web 2.0 tools

■ broker a new relationship between curators,content and users.

In line with the creation of the value propositions,some attempt has been made to show thecost:benefit ratio of Europeana.

Cost benefits

Some of the most important benefits of Europeanaare considered economically intangible. Theseinclude the contribution to a European societyconnected through culture, the fostering of socialinclusion and the furthering of a collective, pan-European understanding. Other benefits arepotentially easier to quantify, such as the economicreturn of increased visibility of our sharedheritage, the cost reductions realized by developingand sharing open source code and the value thataccess to culture can contribute to the educationalsector and the creative industries.

Key metrics are being developed to better trackand measure some of these effects over the courseof the coming years. In order to give an indicationof the areas where positive returns on investment(ROIs) are to be expected, we use the (social) cost-benefits classification guidelines developed byOECD of external, indirect and direct ROIs.

External External benefits are those that can beclassified as positive consequences (externalities)of the actions of Europeana. Although hard toquantify, these effects are at the heart ofEuropeana’s existence and are judged to be animportant contribution to the Digital Agenda ofthe European Union and an underpinning of theknowledge economy. These include but are notlimited to:

■ the strengthening of a shared European culture ■ the promotion and enabling of diversity ■ the increase of social inclusion ■ the improvement of multimedia literacy.

All are deemed of high importance and Europeanahas a unique competitive advantage in succeedingin developing these opportunities.

Indirect Indirect benefits are benefits that, throughmarket transactions, are transmitted to consumers

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and producers in other markets. By making thematerial accessible outside the cultural sector andby the development of new business models andpublic–private partnerships, Europeana can playan important role in reaping these indirect benefits.Expected benefits in this area include:

■ time savings by researchers ■ creation of new businesses in areas such as

tourism■ creation of new jobs in the creative industries■ cost savings in the educational market.

Direct Direct benefits refer to the benefits forEuropeana and its participating investors andpartner institutions. Direct benefits include thefollowing:

■ increased visibility of the content of partici-pating institutions, creating relevance and directeconomic returns from use of online contentand physical footfall

■ decreased cost of providing access through theadoption of the open source code developed byEuropeana, such as the portal and ingestion tools

■ cost savings through standardization ofmetadata

■ cost savings through knowledge transfer.

Barriers to success

Some of the difficulties facing Europeana includethe creation of silos of digitization, where access isonly allowed within an institution or within acountry: a somewhat counter-productive conceptto the idea of a single trading block. There remainsa perceived need to generate revenue fromEuropeana.eu. This is fraught with problems, suchas providers not wanting advertising on the site orunequal sponsoring by member states and for theamount of money being debated (250,000–500,000euros) may not be worth the effort.

Probably the largest barriers are the agreementswith providers of metadata that have a non-commercial clause in them thus preventingEuropeana from publishing the full Europeanadata set as linked open data, and in theory frombeing crawled by the search engines.

Further problems come from the mechanisms ofdealing with copyright not being harmonized or

useful in a web context. As well, the lack ofapplication by content providers on persistentidentifiers leads to problems for users in the longerterm and, finally, the need for true multilingualismin search and retrieval has a direct negative affecton the take-up by school children of the content inEuropeana.

The near future

Further areas were highlighted at the UKSGpresentation and the following are now inprogress:

■ end-user marketing – post the launch of theoperational service in the Summer of 2010, alarge-scale end user marketing campaign hasgone into action

■ more content but not just numbers – efforts arenow on the quality of metadata submitted andthe acquisition of content that strengthen someof the natural themes of Europeana

■ user-generated content – some user-generatedcontent from the Great War Archive in the UKhas already been incorporated into the portal.During 2011 an equivalent archive is being builtwith Germany and France, making use of the Great War Archive community softwareRunCoCo and the knowledge and expertise ofOxford University Computing Services inrunning and managing such events

■ Public Domain Mark and Usage Guide –launched at the Europeana Open CultureConference in Amsterdam, October 2010. Themark was a joint effort with Creative Commonsand aims to make it easy for the user to knowthat an object is really ‘public domain’.Alongside the mark, a series of norms weredeveloped into the Usage Guide which asks theuser to respect the work and effort of thecontributing organization, not to abuse it andto ensure attribution stays in place

■ collective licensing is being investigated as partof EuropeanaConnect to help with the issue ofbeing able to digitize material of unknowncopyright in the first place and to be able tocreate access. First results on this are due inApril 2010.

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Conclusion

Overall, Europeana is on track and, helped by TheNew Renaissance Report of the Comité de Sagesand its own Europeana Strategic Plan 2011-2015, ithas a vision for the future. With help from thecontent providers and stakeholders, we just needto make that future happen.

‘Creativity is the driving force of economic growth.’(Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class,Basic Books, 2002)

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Article © Jill Cousins

■ Jill CousinsExecutive DirectorEuropeana FoundationPrins-Willem-Alexanderhof 52509 LK The HagueThe NetherlandsE-mail: Jill.Cousins@KB.nl

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The DOI for this article is 10.1629/2469. Click here to access via DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1629/2469