Aggregation of Linked Data in the Cultural Heritage Domain: A Case Study in the Europeana Network

Abstract

Online cultural heritage resources are widely available through digital libraries maintained by numerous organizations. In order to improve discoverability in cultural heritage, the typical approach is metadata aggregation, a method where centralized efforts such as Europeana improve the discoverability by collecting resource metadata. The redefinition of the traditional data models for cultural heritage resources into data models based on semantic technology has been a major activity of the cultural heritage community. Yet, linked data may bring new innovation opportunities for cultural heritage metadata aggregation. We present the outcomes of a case study that we conducted within the Europeana cultural heritage network. In this study, the National Library of The Netherlands contributed by providing the role of data provider, while the Dutch Digital Heritage Network contributed as an intermediary aggregator that aggregates datasets and provides them to Europeana, the central aggregator. We identified and analyzed the requirements for an aggregation solution for the linked data, guided by current aggregation practices of the Europeana network. These requirements guided the definition of a workflow that fulfils the same functional requirements as the existing one. The workflow was put into practice within this study and has led to the development of software applications for administrating datasets, crawling the web of data, harvesting linked data, data analysis and data integration. We present our analysis of the study outcomes and analyze the effort necessary, in terms of technology adoption, to establish a linked data approach, from the point of view of both data providers and aggregators. We also present the expertise requirements we identified for cultural heritage data analysts, as well as determining which supporting tools were required to be designed specifically for semantic data.

Metadata Aggregation via Linked Data: Results of the Europeana Common Culture Project

“…An important point is that LD provides a technological basis for metadata aggregation, which brings new options for data synchronization and data modelling. Some of the participants of the Europeana Common Culture LD task have recently engaged in a smaller pilot (the National Library of the Netherlands, the Dutch Digital Heritage Network (NDE) and Europeana Foundation) [8], whose positive results have led to the setup of this larger scale LD aggregation that we describe in this paper. NDE, the technical lead in our current task, is a Dutch national program aiming to increase the social value of the collections maintained by libraries, archives and museums in the Netherlands by improving their visibility, usability and sustainability.…”

“…In this case study, we have further elaborated the specification for defining a LD dataset for Europeana, from earlier work [8]. In short, the revised specification [14] allows data providers to provide dataset-level metadata as a LD resource, and makes use of well-known vocabularies for this kind of metadata.…”

Cross-collection Linking of Botanical Imagery in Ghent Altarpiece to Learn More about Van Eyck’s Masterpiece and to Explore a Region’s Plant Richness and Diversity over Time

“…In such scenarios, institutions that are providing access to their data face a drawback of creating a gap between the data and itself [3]. A case study on aggregation of linked data within the Europeana network showed that the institutions that were already using linked data were able to share their data easily through their libraries which proved to be beneficial due to increased interoperability [6]. This also removes the gap between the owners and their data since the data access rights are held with the owning institution, even though the data is made available to other institutions.…”

“…As shown in Figure 5 and 6, the platform allows to perform a spatio-temporal study of the spreading of a particular plant (such as the Greater Celandine). The platform collects and shares data based on the guidelines of GBIF 6 . GBIF stands for Global Biodiversity Information Facility which is an international network that collects global biodiversity information.…”

An Integrated Approach to 3D Web Visualization of Cultural Heritage Heterogeneous Datasets

“…The actual potential landscape is expanded with search and retrieval services, contextualizing of digital resources and user interaction strategies. The most prominent efforts encompass partnerships among institutions, organizations and professional associations for digital libraries, 3D archives and organized repositories, such as CyArk, Europeana and Open Heritage 3D [4,5]. Research projects and individual scientific initiatives have also demonstrated pioneer work within these objectives.…”