Europeana – extending our reach

Carlo Meghini

CNR ISTI Pisa

11. konference Archivy, knihovny, muzea v digitálním světě

2/12/2010

Europeana: the vision

‘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

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Europeana’s communications model

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tstakeholder involvem

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user engagement

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Growing political engagement

• European Commission funding projects that Since the 1990s

promote interoperability of European information

• Google Print’s library partnerships announced December 2004

• Letter from 6 Heads of State to the President of the April 2005

European Commission

• Commission launches i2010, a 5 year digital-led June 2005

strategy for growth and jobs

• The Commission’s Directorate for Information Society September 2005

and Media launches Digital Libraries Initiative

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Gaining political momentum

• Commission recommendation to Member States August 2006 to create a European digital library

• Endorsement by the Council of Culture Ministers November 2006representing all the Member States

• Outcome:

• European digital library (EDL) Thematic Network July 2007 to

• 18-month project March 2009

• Funded by the digital libraries initiative under

the eContentplus call

• To create a prototype web portal: Europeana

ELDC 2009

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The Commission’s objectives for Europeana

• To create a multilingual public-domain access point to Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage

• To use digitised cultural and scientific heritage resources as input for a wide range of information products and services

• To play a key role in the future growth of sectors such as learning and tourism

• To inspire new creative enterprise and innovation

• To promote understanding of our common European background and the sense of a European identity

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Achieving political endorsement

• European Parliament votes to support a multilingual September 2007 access point to Europe’s common heritage

• Commission issues Communication detailing each August 2008 Members’ progress on the digital libraries initiative

• Europeana strategy briefing for policy advisors and October 2008 digital strategists in all Ministries of Culture

• Council of Culture Ministers meeting publishes 20 November 2008 Conclusions on the European digital library which express strong political support

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Council conclusions, 20 November 2008

‘ Digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material are essential to highlight cultural heritage, to inspire the creation of new content and to encourage new online services to emerge. They help to democratise access to culture and knowledge and to develop the information society and the knowledge-based economy.’

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Europeana’s communications model

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Top-level stakeholder buy-in

• EDL Foundation: Board of participants from the professional heritage associations• ACE: Association Cinémathèques Européennes

• CENL: Conference of European National Librarians

• CERL: Consortium of European Research Libraries

• EMF: European Museum Forum

• EURBICA: European Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives

• FIAT: International Federation of Television Archives

• IASA: International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives

• ICOM Europe: International Council of Museums, Europe

• LIBER: Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche

• MICHAEL: Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe

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Involving partners

• Promoting technology transfer, standards and practices across the heritage domains and between Member States

• Technical experts contributing to Work Packages

• Developing services for the Europeana website

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The communications multiplier

• The EDL Foundation Board members communicate to their communities, focusing on the messages that are relevant to them

• The partners communicate in their own language with• colleagues• national professional networks • national media: translated press releases; articles• visitors and end-users: links on websites; newsletters

• Enabling Europeana’s core team to maximise their impact

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Europeana’s communications model

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Result: Europeana prototype

• Europeana.eu launched in November 2008

• Cultural and scientific material from every European country

• 1,000+ contributing organisations

• Multilingual interface in 25 languages

• Overwhelming public interest

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Europeana’s communications model

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Europeana facts

• Last press release: 18/11/2010• 14 millions objects are searchable and accessible through the

Europeana portal

64% images: Digitised photographs, maps, paintings, museum objects and other images , posters

34%: digitised texts, including more than 1.2 million complete books that can be viewed online and/or downloaded. The texts cover thousands of rare manuscripts and the earliest printed books (incunabula) from before 1500.

2% videos and sound materials: movies, documentaries, TV broadcasts, public information films, cylinders, 78rpm discs, radio, field recordings

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Europeana facts

• Over 1,000 heritage collectionsLibraries; museums; galleries; archives; sound, film and TV collections

• Through a multilingual interface• Much of the material accessible through Europeana is out of copyright,

items

• difficulties and cost of rights clearance to digitise and give access to in-copyright

material or material whose potential right-holders are unknown (orphan works).

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Contributors

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France 17.98 %

Germany 17.10 %

Sweden 9.69 %

Spain 8.85 %

The Netherlands 7.89 %

Italy 7.03

…. ….

Czech Republic 0.08 %

…. ….

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AthenaAPEnet

Biodiversity HeritageLibraries Europe

EUScreen

EuropeanFilmGateway

EuropeanaLocal

Musical Inst.Museums Online

Judaica Europeana

The European Library

EuropeanaConnect

Europeana v.1.0

Europeana Group of Projects

ArrowPrestoPrime

Europeana

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ASSETS

Czech participation

LIBRARIES (Contact point: National Library of the Czech Republic)• Erich, http://enrich.manuscriptorium.com/• The European Library, http://theeuropeanlibrary.org,

ARCHIVES (Contact point: The National Film Archive in Prague)• The European Film Gateway, http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/

MUSEUMS (Contact point: National Museum)• Athena (Access to Cultural Heritage Networks Across Europe),

www.athenaeurope.org

Archaeology and Conservation (Contact point: National Heritage Institute)

• Carare, http://www.carare.eu/

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Content stays in its original website

• Content remains within your organisation • Drives traffic to your website• Gives users access to vast amounts of information via your organisation’s website

• Users are interested in going back to the content provider’s website

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Europeana Milestones

• June 2010 Rhine Release

10 million items

• Spring 2011 Danube Release

• By 2012 25 million items

• … Further growing content

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Know more

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