Presentation for the Europeana hands-on session at TPDL2018 http://www.tpdl.eu/tpdl2018/tutorials/europeana-hands-on-session/

1. The Europeana Data Model
A few explanations - and why
you shouldn’t be afraid!
Antoine Isaac, Hugo Manguinhas
TPDL 2018 | DCMI 2018

2. Starting with a few reminders
on Europeana
France, Public Domain
1914, National Library of France
Agence de presse Meurisse
Concours de cycles nautiques sur le lac
d’Enghien : Berregent piloté par Austerling

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Europeana is rather big…
58 million digitized objects, from 3,700 institutions in 44 countries

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… and diverse
53 million digitized objects, from 3,700 institutions in 44
countries
● Many different themes and types of objects
Books, newspapers, journals, letters, diaries, archival papers, paintings, maps, drawings,
photographs, music, spoken word, radio broadcasts, film, newsreels, television, fashion,
sculpture, 3D objects, and more
● Libraries, archives, museums have different ways to describe
objects. Even within a sector, big differences can be observed
● Heterogeneity makes quality issues even harder to cope with

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What data does Europeana hold, by the
way?
● Descriptive and technical metadata
● Thumbnails
As a rule, content is still served from our data partners
● Some content for specific projects
● newspapers text and images
● user-generated content (Europeana 1914-1918)

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7. France, Public Domain
1932, National Library of France
Agence de presse Mondial Photo-Presse.
Tournoi royal de motos à Londres :
changement d'une roue de side-car en marche
We need to work
with that
metadata

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Our first metadata model: The
Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE)
• A flat model, nicely simple, but
• With no links between cultural objects or between
objects and context entities (persons, places)
• Mixing data on real object and digital representation
and provider information
• Causing a lot of mapping quality problems

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The EDM requirements
1. Distinguish the real object (painting, book) from its digital
representation
2. Distinguish the object from its metadata record
3. Allow multiple records for same object, containing potentially
contradictory statements about an object
4. Support for objects that are composed of other objects (hierarchies)
5. Be compatible with different levels of description (generic/
interoperable vs. specific/domain-centered)
6. Flexible support for describing contextual resources, including
concepts
7. Re-use and extend elements from existing standards

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Re-using existing (semantic web and
linked data) standards and principles
• EDM is an RDF-based model
• Aims at providing data as resources (with URIs!), not only strings
• Enables the development of a multilingual data environment
• Re-uses and mixes different vocabularies together
OAI-ORE FOAF

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Following the Linked Open Data principles
http://vimeo.com/36752317

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Extension in DM2E project (Digital Manuscripts to Europeana)
http://onto.dm2e.eu/schemas/dm2e
EDM enables specialization of classes
and properties.
This Semantic Web approach allows
one to define extensions and
applications profiles answering the
needs of specific communities.
Different semantic grains

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Enriching data
Several processes produce richer metadata that we and others can
use to build new and innovative services
• Harvesting Linked Open Data from data partners
• Crowdsourcing
• Automatic semantic enrichment
Latvijas dzelzceļu karte
1937, National Library of Latvia, Latvia | Public Domain

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Building a network of contextual
information
Europeana grows a “Semantic Layer” linking to contextual resources (e.g.
concepts, persons, places).
Diagram by Stefan Gradmann

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EDM, concretely
Netherlands, Public Domain
1660 - 1625, Rijksmuseum
Anonymous
Arrival of a Portuguese ship

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Thumbnail
Metadata
Link to data
provider
Rights

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Links to contextual entities

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EDM basic pattern
An aggregation with a Provided CHO and
Web resource(s)
ore:Aggregation
(Identifier of aggregation)
edm:WebResource
(Identifier of web resource)
edm:ProvidedCHO
(Identifier of real object)
edm:aggregatedCHO
edm:hasView

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Properties for edm:ProvidedCHO
The Provided CHO is the cultural heritage object which is the subject of the
package of data that has been submitted to Europeana.
Optional fields:
dc:contributor, dc:creator, dc:date, dc:format,
dc:identifier, dc:language, dc:publisher,
dc:relation, dc:source, dcterms:alternative,
dcterms:extent, dcterms:temporal,
dcterms:medium, dcterms:created,
dcterms:provenance, dcterms:issued,
dcterms:conformsTo, dcterms:hasFormat,
dcterms:isFormatOf, dcterms:hasVersion,
dcterms:isVersionOf, dcterms:hasPart,
dcterms:isPartOf, dcterms:isReferencedBy,
dcterms:references, dcterms:isReplacedBy,
dcterms:replaces dcterms:isRequiredBy,
dcterms:requires dcterms:tableOfContents
edm:isNextInSequence
edm:isDerivativeOf
edm:currentLocation…
Mandatory fields:
dc:title or dc:description
One of dc:coverage, dc:subject, dc:type
dcterms:spatial
edm:type with value of TEXT, IMAGE,
VIDEO, SOUND or 3D
dc:language for objects with edm:type
value of TEXT

20. Europeana Essentials
CC BY-SA
Example
CC BY-SA
Clavecin, Bartolomeo Cristofori
Cite de la Musique,
MIMO - Musical Instruments Museums Online|CC BY-NC-SA
Europeana Data Model example

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Contextual entities
edm:Agent
foaf:name
skos:altLabel
rdaGr2:biographicalInformation
rdaGr2:dateOfBirth
skos:Concept
skos:prefLabel
skos:altLabel
skos:broader
skos:related
skos:definition….
edm:TimeSpan
skos:prefLabel
dcterms:isPartOf
edm:begin
edm:end
….
edm:Place
wgs84_pos:lat
wgs84_pos:long
skos:prefLabel
skos:note
dcterms:isPartOf….
Representing (real-world) entities related to a provided object
as fully fledged resources, not just strings

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Example: an AAT concept in EDM
edm:ProvidedCHO
Hourglass
urn:imss:instrument:401058
dc:type
skos:Concept
http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/
300198626
skos:prefLabel
skos:prefLabel
skos:prefLabel
hourglasses@en
uurglazen@nl
reloj de las
horas@es
skos:broader
http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300206197
=sandglasses

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edm:WebResource
One or more digital representations of the provided cultural heritage object.
dc:rights
edm:rights
dc:format
dcterms:isPartOf
edm:isNextInSequence

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Title here
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Europeana Essentials
CC BY-SA
Example
CC BY-SA
NB: digital representations can have different rights,
formats etc.

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ore:ggregation and
edm:EuropeanaAggregation
The aggregation represents the set of related resources about one real
object contributed by one provider. It carries the metadata that is about
the whole set
Mandatory:
edm:aggregatedCHO
edm:dataProvider
edm:isShownBy or
edm:isShownAt
edm:provider
edm:rights
Optional:
edm:hasView
edm:object
dc:rights
edm:ugc

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CC BY-SA
Title here
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Europeana Essentials
CC BY-SA
Example
CC BY-SA

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Beyond the basic pattern: ore:Proxy
EDM re-uses the notion of proxies (from OAI-ORE) for Provided CHOs for
representing data from multiple sources: provider(s), Europeana…
Many of the API queries for specific values in descriptive metadata fields
actually target proxies
Proxies can have roughly the same properties as Provided CHOs

28. Europeana
aggregation
Enriched metadata
v
Provider
aggregation

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Support for annotations
oa:Annotation
http://data.europeana.eu/
annotation/...
oa:hasBody
skos:Concept
http://dbpedia.org/resource/
Brass_instrument
oa:tagging
oa:motivatedBy
edm:ProvidedCHO
http://data.europeana.eu/item/...
oa:hasTarget
oa:SemanticTag
#tag1
skos:related

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And many other things that you
will discover on the way…
But now the final word
Netherlands, Public Domain
1615, Rijksmuseum
Anonymous
Elegant Party on a Terrace of a Venetian-
inspired Setting

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A community driven model
• Involving experts from libraries, archives, museums and academics
• The input from the different communities makes the model stronger
• Adopting a collaborative, softer form of standardization
http://pro.europeana.eu/europeana-tech
Europeana Assembly General Meeting, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, 2015

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Maintaining EDM as an open and living
standard
• The model is openly documented and shared
• http://pro.europeana.eu/edm-documentation
• We showcase the various profiles of EDM
• http://pro.europeana.eu/share-your-data/data-guidelines/edm-case-studies
Representing performing arts metadata in
EDM
Julia Beck, Marko Knepper, University
Library Frankfurt am Main
http://pro.europeana.eu/share-your-data/
data-guidelines/edm-case-studies/edm-for-
performing-arts-metadata

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Name of image | Creator
Providing organization|
Country, licence
Name of image | Creator
Providing organization| Country, licence
antoine.isaac@europeana.eu
@antoine_isaac