User:Lcastrillo/sandbox: Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox Website |
{{Infobox Website |
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| name = Archives Portal Europe |
| name = Archives Portal Europe |
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| logo = [File:Apex.png|thumb|Archives Portal Europe]] |
| logo = [[File:Apex.png|thumb|alt=Archives Portal Europe|Logo]] |
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| screenshot = |
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| collapsible = no |
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| caption = |
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| url = [http://apex-project.eu/ apex-project.eu] |
| url = [http://apex-project.eu/ apex-project.eu] |
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| commercial = no |
| commercial = no |
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| type = Meta-aggregator and display space for |
| type = Meta-aggregator and display space for Europe Archive documents |
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| registration = |
| registration = |
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| owner = [[ |
| owner = [[Archives Portal Europe Foundation]] |
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| author = |
| author = [[Archives Portal Europe Foundation]] |
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| launch date = |
| launch date = 1st March 2009 (APEnet), 1st March 2012 (APEx) |
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| current status = official |
| current status = official |
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| revenue = |
| revenue = |
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}} |
}} |
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Archives Portal Europe has been created and enhanced through years of collective development. In particular, it makes considerable effort to implement standardisation and create tools in order to manage and publish complex data from a wide range of archives across Europe. |
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'''Europeana.eu''' is an internet portal that acts as an interface to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe. ''[[Mona Lisa]]'' by [[Leonardo da Vinci]], ''[[Girl With a Pearl Earring|Girl with a Pearl Earring]]'' by [[Johannes Vermeer]], the works of [[Charles Darwin]] and [[Isaac Newton]] and the music of [[Mozart|Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] are some of the highlights on Europeana. |
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More than 2,000 institutions across Europe have contributed to Europeana. These range from major international names like the [[Rijksmuseum Amsterdam|Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam]], the [[British Library]] and the [[Louvre]] to regional archives and local museums from every member of the [[European Union]].<ref>List of partners and contributors [http://europeana.eu/portal/partners.html List of partners and contributors], Europeana.eu. Accessed 2 February 2011.</ref> Together, their assembled collections let users explore Europe's cultural and scientific heritage from prehistory to the modern day. |
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== History == |
== History == |
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APEx – the Archives Portal Europe network of excellence – is the framework for European archives to collaborate for wider and enhanced accessibility of their content on the web. It continues the work of the APEnet project (2009–2012) in which 19 European national archives and Europeana established and released the Archives Portal Europe. With the continued expansion and enhancement of the Archives Portal Europe – in terms of participating countries and institutions, plus available content and services – APEx will contribute to the development of a coherent digital infrastructure which opens up the portal to our common cultural heritage of archives, equally accessible for citizens, researchers, businesses and governments alike. Funded and supported by the European Commission within the framework of the Information and Technology Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP), APEx runs from March 2012 until February 2015. |
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The catalyst for Europeana was a letter sent by [[Jacques Chirac]], President of France, together with the premiers of Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Hungary to the President of the European Commission, [[Jose Manuel Durao Barroso|José Manuel Durão Barroso]], in April 2005. The letter recommended the creation of a virtual European library, to make Europe's cultural heritage accessible for all.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/letter_1/index_en.htm |title=Letter of 28 April 2005 Accessed February 2, 2011 |publisher=Ec.europa.eu |date=28 April 2005 |accessdate=2013-02-24}}</ref> |
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== Mission == |
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The letter added resonance to the work that the [[European Commission]]'s [[Directorate-General for Information Society and Media (European Commission)|Information Society and Media Directorate]] had been engaged in for over a decade, with programmes such as Telematics for Libraries. It gave strong political endorsement to the Directorate's strategy, i2010: communication on digital libraries, which was published on 30 September 2005. The strategy announced the intention to promote and support the creation of a European digital library, as a goal within the European Union,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/index_en.htm |title=Accessed March 10, 2011 |publisher=Ec.europa.eu |date= |accessdate=2013-02-24}}</ref> which aims to foster growth in the information society and media industries. |
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APEx will: |
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* Expand the network of contributing archival institutions throughout Europe |
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* Improve substantially the interoperability with Europeana |
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* Stabilise the Archives Portal Europe infrastructure and hosting and improve its throughput capacity |
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* Make available more standards and guidelines as well as tools and support to the content providers to facilitate content delivery |
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* Develop dissemination and training programmes to encourage and advance aggregation at national levels and thereby raise awareness for Europe's rich collections of archival material |
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* Power innovation in usability and Web 2.0 functionality to ensure up-to-date content delivery |
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* Sustain a |
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ll efforts mentioned above |
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On its quest, the Archives Portal Europe will continuously take on board additional European archival institutions while APEx will provide all means necessary to assist aggregation at national levels. |
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The project that began the building of Europeana was called the European Digital Library Network (EDLnet) and was aimed at building a prototype of a cross-border, cross-domain, user-centred service. It was funded by the European Commission under its eContentplus programme, one of the research and development funding streams of i2010. |
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Furthermore, APEx will cooperate actively with Europeana on the interoperability of metadata formats and rights management of archival material. |
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The prototype was launched on 20 November 2008.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.europeana.eu/portal/aboutus_background.html |title=Background |publisher=Europeana.eu |accessdate= 10 March 2011}}</ref> At its beta launch, the site gave access to 4.5 million digital objects – more than double the initial target – from over 1,000 contributing organisations, including world-famous national library, gallery and museum collections from the capitals of Europe. Due to an unexpected user surge (peaking at an estimated 10 million hits an hour), the servers were unable to cope with the massive load. The site was temporarily taken down, and after series of technical upgrades went up again in December 2008. |
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In February 2009, the successor of EDLnet – Europeana version 1.0 – began. This 30-month project was to develop the prototype into a fully operational service. In 2010, the project accomplished its objective of giving access to over 10 million digital objects.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-v1.0 |title=Europeana Version 1 project |publisher=Europeana Foundation |date= |accessdate=2012-06-25}}</ref> Early in 2011, new features on the site included a translation tool and the ability to expand on information by automatically transferring the search term to Wikipedia and other services. |
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Finally, APEx's ultimate goal is to provide easy access via the Archives Portal Europe to as much archival content of as many European institutions as possible and equally, to channel all digitised and digital archival material to Europeana. |
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== Function == |
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Europeana gives access to different types of content from different types of heritage institutions. The digital objects that users can find in Europeana are not stored on a central computer, but remain with the cultural institution and are hosted on their networks. Europeana collects contextual information – or metadata – about the items, including a small picture. Users search this contextual information. Once they find what they are looking for, if they want to access the full content of the item, they can click through to the original site that holds the content. |
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Different types of cultural heritage organisations – libraries, museums, archives and audiovisual collections – catalogue their content in different ways and to different standards. Approaches also vary in different countries. To make the information searchable, it has to be mapped to a single common standard, known as the Europeana Semantic Elements. This metadata standard at present takes a lowest common denominator approach to the integration of different types of digital content. However, the introduction of a richer metadata standard, the Europeana Data Model, will help to give users more and better information. |
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Europeana accepts metadata about digital objects, it does not make any decisions about digitisation. The decision about which objects are digitised lies with the organisation that holds the material. |
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== Strategy == |
== Strategy == |
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In its Strategic Plan for 2011–2015,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://version1.europeana.eu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c4f19464-7504-44db-ac1e-3ddb78c922d7&groupId=10602 |title=Strategic Plan 2011–2015 |publisher= Europeana.eu |accessdate= 10 March 2011}}</ref> which was published in January 2011, Europeana outlines four strategic tracks that will shape its further development: |
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# Aggregate – to build the open trusted source for European cultural and scientific heritage content; |
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# Facilitate – to support the cultural and scientific heritage sector through knowledge transfer, innovation and advocacy; |
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# Distribute – to make heritage available to users wherever they are, whenever they want it; |
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# Engage – to cultivate new ways for users to participate in their cultural and scientific heritage. |
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== Organisation == |
== Organisation == |
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===Project Managment (WP1)=== |
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The Europeana Foundation<ref>{{cit web |url=http://pro.europeana.eu/foundation |title=The Europeana Foundation |publisher= Pro.europeana.eu |accessdate= 25 June 2012}}</ref> is the governing body of the Europeana service. Its members are the presidents and chairs of European associations for cultural heritage and information associations. |
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Led by: Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands) |
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Aye, capt’n! |
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Holding the tiller of the APEx project, the management ensures the smooth realisation of goals as well as overall organisation of the enterprise – not only at strategic but also at political level. |
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Objectives: |
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Overall planning |
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Change management |
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Quality control |
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Risk management |
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Administrative and financial tasks |
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Management of the APEx project is a particularly complex operation due to the geographically and organisationally dispersed resources that must be utilised. Therefore, precise administrative supervision of the project’s information infrastructure is crucial to achieve the project’s goals. The Project Management’s responsibility lies in providing a single point of contact for the European Commission as well as rendering coordination for the project and its constituent Work Packages during the lifetime of the APEx project. |
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Furthermore, this WP is responsible for aligning the activities and deliverables across the individual Work Packages, coordinating the implementation of the WP plans and thereby ensuring the compliance and regular updating of the overall Consortium plan. This also includes overseeing and controlling the Consortium budget and ensuring the desired quality of the project deliverables. |
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While monitoring the project’s progress and handling change management when necessary, the Project Management also reports on progress and/or changes to the European Commission, the APEx Executive Steering Committee (ESC) and the APEx Project Board (PB). |
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===Europeana Interoperability (WP2)=== |
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Led by: Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives of Germany) |
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Forces, unite! |
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The close 3-year cooperation between the APEnet project and Europeana has proven to be valuable for both sides and APEx will continue the work on substantially enhancing the interoperability between both projects and their respective portals. |
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Objectives: |
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Stabilise and maintain the technical interface of the Archives Portal Europe |
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Foster submission of archival material to Europeana |
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Improve interoperability of metadata formats |
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Establish a network of national aggregators |
|||
Stabilising and maintaining the already established technical interface between the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana and turning the former into the centre of an aggregation network for all European institutions holding archival material, is one of the major goals of this Work Package. The Archives Portal Europe will become an essential pillar for the continuity and sustainability of Europeana by preparing as much digitised archival material as possible of European institutions to be transferred to and presented within the Europeana portal. Accordingly, this will also ensure the aggregation of archival knowledge and feed this into the joint efforts of the Europeana network to enhance the cross-domain portal on Europe’s cultural heritage. |
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In order to achieve the latter, APEx will pursue the work on standardising metadata formats and on improving their interoperability. With regard to the European Data Model (EDM), this WP will, for example, determine more options for demonstrating a hierarchically-structured display of archival content via the apeEAD by taking Europeana structures into account. This will promote the establishment of a network of national aggregators within the project’s partner states, thereby intensifying cooperation on providing rights-clarified digital content in the archives’ domain in Europe – eventually to the benefit of Europeana as the knowledge creating hub in and for Europe. |
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===Infrastructure Development & Hosting (WP3)=== |
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Led by: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain) |
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Features, olé! |
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This Work Package aims at enhancing the functionalities of the Archives Portal Europe for users as well as content providers. |
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Objectives: |
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Progress usability and accessibility of the Archives Portal Europe |
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Enhance user profiles and Web 2.0 facilities |
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Ensure security of the infrastructure within the Archives Portal Europe |
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Support content providers manage the tools and interfaces of the Archives Portal Europe |
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Based on the results achieved within the APEnet project, the main objectives of this WP centre on maintaining and improving user related hardware and software functionalities and innovating the portal’s front-end/user and back-end/dashboard interface. This involves close cooperation with other related WPs in order to enhance user profiles, Web 2.0 facilities and facilitate virtual exhibitions etc. The collaboration with WP5 (Tools & Support) is of particular importance regarding the support of content providers to manage the tools and interfaces of the Archives Portal Europe and also to submit APEx project content to Europeana. |
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===Standards & Guidelines (WP4)=== |
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Led by: Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives of Germany) |
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Synthesis, ahoy! |
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Pursuing further successful content management is based on the use of common profiles of international archival standards like EAD – advancing the Archives Portal Europe specific standards & guidelines sets the tone here. |
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Objectives: |
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Adapt and advance the apeEAD (Encoded Archival Description) |
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Develop the apeEAG (Encoded Archival Guide), apeEAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context – Cooperate Bodies, Persons, Families) and apeMETS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) |
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Evaluate rights administration on archival material and set a common framework within the Archives Portal Europe network |
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User evaluation in cooperation with Usability & Web 2.0 (WP6) |
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The APEnet project already successfully established a common profile for the use of the international archival standard EAD (Encoded Archival Description) within the Archives Portal Europe network as the basis for central conversion, validation, indexing and presentation facilities. APEx will take up the threads to adapt and further advance the apeEAD to new developments of the general EAD schema and interoperability with the EDM, where WP2 functions will be based on the work of WP4. |
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The steps undertaken for EAD will furthermore be followed for the related archival standards EAG (Encoded Archival Guide), EAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Person, Families) and METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) in order to establish profiles for these formats too. This WP will additionally act as APEx’s link to other international archival bodies like the European Branch of the International Council on Archives (EURBICA), the European Board of National Archivists (EBNA) and the European Archives Group (EAG). |
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WP4 will furthermore take care of organising agreements on the exchange of archival (meta)data and descriptions with a special focus on rights management as well as emphasising alignment of the content provider agreements of the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana. |
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===Tools & Support (WP5)=== |
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Led by: Service interministériel des Archives de France (Interdepartmental Service of Archives of France) |
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It’s tool time! |
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Time to further develop the Data Preparation Tool thereby allowing content providers to convert their local data into the newly-defined profiles for the Archives Portal Europe. |
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Objectives: |
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Gather information on possible content providers, contributors, systems and formats per country |
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Conduct studies on best practices regarding the administration of rights at local level in cooperation with Standards & Guidelines (WP4) |
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Develop central and local tools to connect systems and content via standards |
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In order to understand the objectives of this Work Package, it is necessary to take a look back at the accomplishments of the APEnet project: setting up the logical model of the Archives Portal Europe regulating the standards to be used and the integration of content into the portal, efficiently established: |
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a common “European archival standard” based on an EAD schema specifically created |
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a Data Preparation Tool allowing the content providers to convert their local data into the newly-defined schema profile, available either as a standalone tool or as an integrated tool within the dashboard of the portal. |
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As a result, a wide range of holdings guides and finding aids from various countries were made fully interoperable and searchable within the portal. This standardisation of archival descriptions is a necessity to concern Europeana only with one single aggregator and with only one type of data model instead of the numerous ones, actually existing in the archives’ domain. |
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It is this Work Package’s main responsibility to maintain and further develop the Data Preparation Tool in order to: |
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integrate all of the new partners’ data |
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implement the APE profiles of the other standards chosen for the portal such as apeEAG, apeEAC-CPF and apeMETS which are being established as a team effort between this WP and Standards & Guidelines (WP4). |
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===Usability & Web 2.0 (WP6)=== |
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Led by: Rahvusarhiiv (National Archives of Estonia) |
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Innovation, hurray! |
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This Work Package is tasked with applying innovative Web 2.0 functionalities to the Archives Portal Europe, allowing for user-compliant accessibility. |
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Objectives: |
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Develop innovative, international and cross-sectoral best-practice assess methods and tools |
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Implement infrastructural use cases and business requirements |
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Organise acceptance testing and user evaluation of portal software |
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Disseminate research and best practice about innovative access methods and tools for the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana |
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This WP groups several activities which were previously spread across multiple WPs in the APEnet project: now there is a new focus on the need to modernise access. The work encompasses researching and implementing an optimised use of Web 2.0-and-beyond functionality for front- and back-end users alike. WP6 explores the state of the art of user interface design, including novel approaches such as social bookmarking, personal databases, collaborative content enrichment/crowd sourcing, virtual exhibitions and mash-ups with geographic data etc. On the basis of this knowledge, WP6 will – in close cooperation with Standards & Guidelines (WP4) – develop requirements for the user interface and corresponding back-end tools for APEx’s infrastructure. The tandem of WP6 and WP4 will operate a client/supplier relationship with WP3 and WP5 on usability and accessibility issues which also includes testing and evaluating the outcomes of Infrastructure Development & Hosting (WP3) and Tools & Support (WP5) both internally and externally. |
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===Dissemination and Training (WP7)=== |
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Led by: Riksarkivet (National Archives of Sweden) |
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Reaching out to new shores! |
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Basically, anything regarding the public dissemination and training of end users of and content providers to the Archives Portal Europe is what this Work Package’s flag is reading. |
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Objectives: |
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Promote the Archives Portal Europe |
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Set up and maintain the APEx project website |
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Implement a Learning Management System (LMS) to collate streamed and recorded presentations, workshops, training sessions, guidelines and seminars |
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Create a visual corporate identity |
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Edit and publish PR material about the APE in relevant online/offline media |
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In order to work productively, the base for this Work Package forms the development of an efficient dissemination model within the APEx project to successfully promote the Archives Portal Europe. The goal is to make the portal known to potential users and also to encourage institutions to join the network by establishing comprehensive activities in dissemination and training. The involvement of ICARUS as a network of more than 100 archival and archive-related institutions in Europe contributes to these aims significantly and provides the opportunity to foster synergies with other projects and gain new partners for APEx. |
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Furthermore, WP7 will be present at conferences and seminars etc to promote the use of the portal, educate institutions (in a joint effort with corresponding WPs) in the use the network's framework, tools and standards and reach out to suppliers of archival data management systems to join the project. An additionally important task is to develop and align branding and layout designs for the APEx website, for the Archives Portal Europe and finally for the Archives Portal Europe Foundation. Last but not least, WP7 will encourage and enable knowledge building and exchange among partner organisations, especially towards a wide variety of institutions outside the Consortium. |
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===Sustainability (WP8)=== |
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Led by: Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands) |
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Full steam ahead! |
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The vision: keep the sails set, keep bridging new shores and keep discovering our shared European history and future. |
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Objectives: |
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The Foundation promotes collaboration between museums, archives, audiovisual collections and libraries so that users can have integrated access to their content through Europeana and other services. |
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Establish an Archives Portal Europe Foundation |
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The Foundation is incorporated under Dutch law as '''Stichting Europeana'''<ref>Stichting Europeana, {{Ill|nl|Chamber of Commerce (Netherlands)|Kamer van Koophandel (Nederland)}} (KvK) 27307531, Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5, 's-Gravenhage</ref> and is housed within the [[Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands|Koninklijke Bibliotheek]], the national library of the Netherlands. It provides a legal framework for the governance of Europeana, employing the staff, bidding for funding and enabling the sustainability of the service. |
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Ensure sustainability of the Archives Portal Europe |
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The major responsibility of this Work Package is to ensure the permanence of APEx’s efforts by transforming the project after its completion into an Archives Portal Europe Foundation. The practical implementation of the APE Foundation will sustain the APE and its aggregator role vis-à-vis Europeana. Ultimately, it´s for the archival institutions and the end users that the project partners join efforts and resources, making sure that the results of the APEx project are for the benefit of everyone beyond the project’s duration! |
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The executive director of the Europeana Foundation is Jill Cousins. |
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== Europeana projects == |
== Europeana projects == |
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Revision as of 13:55, 2 March 2015
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2015) |
 | |
Type of site | Meta-aggregator and display space for Europe Archive documents |
|---|---|
| Owner | Archives Portal Europe Foundation |
| Created by | Archives Portal Europe Foundation |
| URL | apex-project.eu |
| Commercial | no |
Archives Portal Europe has been created and enhanced through years of collective development. In particular, it makes considerable effort to implement standardisation and create tools in order to manage and publish complex data from a wide range of archives across Europe.
History
APEx – the Archives Portal Europe network of excellence – is the framework for European archives to collaborate for wider and enhanced accessibility of their content on the web. It continues the work of the APEnet project (2009–2012) in which 19 European national archives and Europeana established and released the Archives Portal Europe. With the continued expansion and enhancement of the Archives Portal Europe – in terms of participating countries and institutions, plus available content and services – APEx will contribute to the development of a coherent digital infrastructure which opens up the portal to our common cultural heritage of archives, equally accessible for citizens, researchers, businesses and governments alike. Funded and supported by the European Commission within the framework of the Information and Technology Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP), APEx runs from March 2012 until February 2015.
Mission
APEx will:
- Expand the network of contributing archival institutions throughout Europe
- Improve substantially the interoperability with Europeana
- Stabilise the Archives Portal Europe infrastructure and hosting and improve its throughput capacity
- Make available more standards and guidelines as well as tools and support to the content providers to facilitate content delivery
- Develop dissemination and training programmes to encourage and advance aggregation at national levels and thereby raise awareness for Europe's rich collections of archival material
- Power innovation in usability and Web 2.0 functionality to ensure up-to-date content delivery
- Sustain a
ll efforts mentioned above
On its quest, the Archives Portal Europe will continuously take on board additional European archival institutions while APEx will provide all means necessary to assist aggregation at national levels.
Furthermore, APEx will cooperate actively with Europeana on the interoperability of metadata formats and rights management of archival material.
Finally, APEx's ultimate goal is to provide easy access via the Archives Portal Europe to as much archival content of as many European institutions as possible and equally, to channel all digitised and digital archival material to Europeana.
Strategy
Organisation
Project Managment (WP1)
Led by: Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands)
Aye, capt’n!
Holding the tiller of the APEx project, the management ensures the smooth realisation of goals as well as overall organisation of the enterprise – not only at strategic but also at political level.
Objectives:
Overall planning Change management Quality control Risk management Administrative and financial tasks
Management of the APEx project is a particularly complex operation due to the geographically and organisationally dispersed resources that must be utilised. Therefore, precise administrative supervision of the project’s information infrastructure is crucial to achieve the project’s goals. The Project Management’s responsibility lies in providing a single point of contact for the European Commission as well as rendering coordination for the project and its constituent Work Packages during the lifetime of the APEx project.
Furthermore, this WP is responsible for aligning the activities and deliverables across the individual Work Packages, coordinating the implementation of the WP plans and thereby ensuring the compliance and regular updating of the overall Consortium plan. This also includes overseeing and controlling the Consortium budget and ensuring the desired quality of the project deliverables.
While monitoring the project’s progress and handling change management when necessary, the Project Management also reports on progress and/or changes to the European Commission, the APEx Executive Steering Committee (ESC) and the APEx Project Board (PB).
Europeana Interoperability (WP2)
Led by: Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives of Germany)
Forces, unite!
The close 3-year cooperation between the APEnet project and Europeana has proven to be valuable for both sides and APEx will continue the work on substantially enhancing the interoperability between both projects and their respective portals.
Objectives:
Stabilise and maintain the technical interface of the Archives Portal Europe Foster submission of archival material to Europeana Improve interoperability of metadata formats Establish a network of national aggregators
Stabilising and maintaining the already established technical interface between the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana and turning the former into the centre of an aggregation network for all European institutions holding archival material, is one of the major goals of this Work Package. The Archives Portal Europe will become an essential pillar for the continuity and sustainability of Europeana by preparing as much digitised archival material as possible of European institutions to be transferred to and presented within the Europeana portal. Accordingly, this will also ensure the aggregation of archival knowledge and feed this into the joint efforts of the Europeana network to enhance the cross-domain portal on Europe’s cultural heritage.
In order to achieve the latter, APEx will pursue the work on standardising metadata formats and on improving their interoperability. With regard to the European Data Model (EDM), this WP will, for example, determine more options for demonstrating a hierarchically-structured display of archival content via the apeEAD by taking Europeana structures into account. This will promote the establishment of a network of national aggregators within the project’s partner states, thereby intensifying cooperation on providing rights-clarified digital content in the archives’ domain in Europe – eventually to the benefit of Europeana as the knowledge creating hub in and for Europe.
Infrastructure Development & Hosting (WP3)
Led by: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain)
Features, olé!
This Work Package aims at enhancing the functionalities of the Archives Portal Europe for users as well as content providers.
Objectives:
Progress usability and accessibility of the Archives Portal Europe Enhance user profiles and Web 2.0 facilities Ensure security of the infrastructure within the Archives Portal Europe Support content providers manage the tools and interfaces of the Archives Portal Europe
Based on the results achieved within the APEnet project, the main objectives of this WP centre on maintaining and improving user related hardware and software functionalities and innovating the portal’s front-end/user and back-end/dashboard interface. This involves close cooperation with other related WPs in order to enhance user profiles, Web 2.0 facilities and facilitate virtual exhibitions etc. The collaboration with WP5 (Tools & Support) is of particular importance regarding the support of content providers to manage the tools and interfaces of the Archives Portal Europe and also to submit APEx project content to Europeana.
Standards & Guidelines (WP4)
Led by: Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives of Germany)
Synthesis, ahoy!
Pursuing further successful content management is based on the use of common profiles of international archival standards like EAD – advancing the Archives Portal Europe specific standards & guidelines sets the tone here.
Objectives:
Adapt and advance the apeEAD (Encoded Archival Description) Develop the apeEAG (Encoded Archival Guide), apeEAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context – Cooperate Bodies, Persons, Families) and apeMETS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) Evaluate rights administration on archival material and set a common framework within the Archives Portal Europe network User evaluation in cooperation with Usability & Web 2.0 (WP6)
The APEnet project already successfully established a common profile for the use of the international archival standard EAD (Encoded Archival Description) within the Archives Portal Europe network as the basis for central conversion, validation, indexing and presentation facilities. APEx will take up the threads to adapt and further advance the apeEAD to new developments of the general EAD schema and interoperability with the EDM, where WP2 functions will be based on the work of WP4.
The steps undertaken for EAD will furthermore be followed for the related archival standards EAG (Encoded Archival Guide), EAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Person, Families) and METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) in order to establish profiles for these formats too. This WP will additionally act as APEx’s link to other international archival bodies like the European Branch of the International Council on Archives (EURBICA), the European Board of National Archivists (EBNA) and the European Archives Group (EAG).
WP4 will furthermore take care of organising agreements on the exchange of archival (meta)data and descriptions with a special focus on rights management as well as emphasising alignment of the content provider agreements of the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana.
===Tools & Support (WP5)===
Led by: Service interministériel des Archives de France (Interdepartmental Service of Archives of France)
It’s tool time!
Time to further develop the Data Preparation Tool thereby allowing content providers to convert their local data into the newly-defined profiles for the Archives Portal Europe.
Objectives:
Gather information on possible content providers, contributors, systems and formats per country Conduct studies on best practices regarding the administration of rights at local level in cooperation with Standards & Guidelines (WP4) Develop central and local tools to connect systems and content via standards
In order to understand the objectives of this Work Package, it is necessary to take a look back at the accomplishments of the APEnet project: setting up the logical model of the Archives Portal Europe regulating the standards to be used and the integration of content into the portal, efficiently established:
a common “European archival standard” based on an EAD schema specifically created a Data Preparation Tool allowing the content providers to convert their local data into the newly-defined schema profile, available either as a standalone tool or as an integrated tool within the dashboard of the portal.
As a result, a wide range of holdings guides and finding aids from various countries were made fully interoperable and searchable within the portal. This standardisation of archival descriptions is a necessity to concern Europeana only with one single aggregator and with only one type of data model instead of the numerous ones, actually existing in the archives’ domain.
It is this Work Package’s main responsibility to maintain and further develop the Data Preparation Tool in order to:
integrate all of the new partners’ data implement the APE profiles of the other standards chosen for the portal such as apeEAG, apeEAC-CPF and apeMETS which are being established as a team effort between this WP and Standards & Guidelines (WP4).
Usability & Web 2.0 (WP6)
Led by: Rahvusarhiiv (National Archives of Estonia)
Innovation, hurray!
This Work Package is tasked with applying innovative Web 2.0 functionalities to the Archives Portal Europe, allowing for user-compliant accessibility.
Objectives:
Develop innovative, international and cross-sectoral best-practice assess methods and tools Implement infrastructural use cases and business requirements Organise acceptance testing and user evaluation of portal software Disseminate research and best practice about innovative access methods and tools for the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana
This WP groups several activities which were previously spread across multiple WPs in the APEnet project: now there is a new focus on the need to modernise access. The work encompasses researching and implementing an optimised use of Web 2.0-and-beyond functionality for front- and back-end users alike. WP6 explores the state of the art of user interface design, including novel approaches such as social bookmarking, personal databases, collaborative content enrichment/crowd sourcing, virtual exhibitions and mash-ups with geographic data etc. On the basis of this knowledge, WP6 will – in close cooperation with Standards & Guidelines (WP4) – develop requirements for the user interface and corresponding back-end tools for APEx’s infrastructure. The tandem of WP6 and WP4 will operate a client/supplier relationship with WP3 and WP5 on usability and accessibility issues which also includes testing and evaluating the outcomes of Infrastructure Development & Hosting (WP3) and Tools & Support (WP5) both internally and externally.
Dissemination and Training (WP7)
Led by: Riksarkivet (National Archives of Sweden)
Reaching out to new shores!
Basically, anything regarding the public dissemination and training of end users of and content providers to the Archives Portal Europe is what this Work Package’s flag is reading.
Objectives:
Promote the Archives Portal Europe Set up and maintain the APEx project website Implement a Learning Management System (LMS) to collate streamed and recorded presentations, workshops, training sessions, guidelines and seminars Create a visual corporate identity Edit and publish PR material about the APE in relevant online/offline media
In order to work productively, the base for this Work Package forms the development of an efficient dissemination model within the APEx project to successfully promote the Archives Portal Europe. The goal is to make the portal known to potential users and also to encourage institutions to join the network by establishing comprehensive activities in dissemination and training. The involvement of ICARUS as a network of more than 100 archival and archive-related institutions in Europe contributes to these aims significantly and provides the opportunity to foster synergies with other projects and gain new partners for APEx.
Furthermore, WP7 will be present at conferences and seminars etc to promote the use of the portal, educate institutions (in a joint effort with corresponding WPs) in the use the network's framework, tools and standards and reach out to suppliers of archival data management systems to join the project. An additionally important task is to develop and align branding and layout designs for the APEx website, for the Archives Portal Europe and finally for the Archives Portal Europe Foundation. Last but not least, WP7 will encourage and enable knowledge building and exchange among partner organisations, especially towards a wide variety of institutions outside the Consortium.
Sustainability (WP8)
Led by: Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands)
Full steam ahead!
The vision: keep the sails set, keep bridging new shores and keep discovering our shared European history and future.
Objectives:
Establish an Archives Portal Europe Foundation Ensure sustainability of the Archives Portal Europe
The major responsibility of this Work Package is to ensure the permanence of APEx’s efforts by transforming the project after its completion into an Archives Portal Europe Foundation. The practical implementation of the APE Foundation will sustain the APE and its aggregator role vis-à-vis Europeana. Ultimately, it´s for the archival institutions and the end users that the project partners join efforts and resources, making sure that the results of the APEx project are for the benefit of everyone beyond the project’s duration!
Europeana projects
There are a number of projects – the Europeana Group – that are contributing technology solutions and content to Europeana.[1] These projects are run by different cultural heritage institutions, and are part-funded by the European Commission's eContentplus programme and the Information and Communications Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP).
The Europeana Group projects are:
- 3D ICONS digitising archaeological monuments and buildings in 3D[2]
- APEx – Archives Portal Europe[3]
- ASSETS aims to improve the usability of Europeana.
- ATHENA aggregates museum content and promotes standards for museum digitisation and metadata.
- Biodiversity Heritage Library for Europe
- CARARE aggregates content for the archaeology and architectural heritage[4]
- Digitising Contemporary Art (DCA)[5]
- DM2E stimulates the creation of new tools and services for re-use of Europeana data in the Digital Humanities[6]
- ECLAP will build a large digital library of performing arts and UGC.[7]
- EURO-Photo digitises photographs from news agencies.
- Europeana 1914–1918 for the First World War centenary, including family histories collected in collaboration with the British Library, the National Library of Luxembourg and other institutions.[8][9][10]
- Europeana Collections 1914-1918 which will make available 425,000 items related to the First World War for the First World War centenary. In January 2014, this material was combined with the Europeana 1914-1918 and European Film Gateway First World War material.
- Europeana Connect adds sound material to Europeana.
- Europeana Fashion[11] will bring more than 700,000 items of fashion-related content into Europeana.
- European Film Gateway (EFG)[12] provides more than 600,000 films and film-related content to Europeana.
- Europeana Libraries[13] will add over 5 million digital objects to Europeana from 19 of Europe's leading research and university libraries.
- Europeana Local brings content from regional and local content holders.
- Europeana Newspapers[14] adds records relating to 18 million newspaper pages to Europeana;
- Europeana Regia is digitising royal manuscripts from Medieval and Renaissance Europe; an exhibition of the manuscripts is available
- Europeana Travel will bring material associated with travel, trade, tourism and migration into Europeana.
- Europeana v1.0 is developing a fully functional Europeana website.
- EUscreen contributes television material to Europeana.[15]
- Heritage of People's Europe (HOPE) aims to improve access to digital social history collections.
- JUDAICA Europeana looks at the Jewish contribution to Europe's cultural heritage.
- Linked Heritage aims to add substantial new content from commercial and public sectors, and enrich Europeana's metadata with a "linked data" approach.
- Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO)
- Natural Europe connects the digital collections of natural history museums.
- OpenUp! brings Europe's natural history heritage to Europeana
- PATHS[16] Personalised Access To cultural Heritage Spaces
- The European Library aggregates the content of national libraries.
- thinkMOTION gathers content from the field of motion systems.
Financing
Europeana and the projects contributing content to Europeana.eu have been funded by the European Commission under eContentplus, the Information and Communications Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) and similar programmes. To participate in a wide range of projects, which are only funded by the Commission for 50–100% of the costs and do not include overheads, Europeana is also reliant for an element of its funding on Member States’ ministries of culture and education.
References
- ^ "Europeana Group". Retrieved 10 March 2011.
- ^ "3D ICONS project". 3D ICONS project. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ "archivesportaleurope.net". Retrieved 1 October 2014.
- ^ "Connecting ARchaeology and ARchitecture in Europeana project". CARARE project. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ "Digitising Contemporary Art (DCA) project". DCA Project. 1 January 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
- ^ "DM2E Project". DM2E Project. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
- ^ "e-Library for Performing Arts (ECLAP)". ECLAP Project. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
- ^ "Europeana 1914–1918". Europeana1914-1918.eu. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
- ^ "Europeana project aims to save more forgotten First World War family histories". Culture24. 24 July 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
- ^ "World War I history at your fingertips". Luxemburger Wort. 30 July 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
- ^ "Europeana Fashion". Europeana Fashion.
- ^ "European Film Gateway". Retrieved 2013-07-19
- ^ "Europeana Libraries".
- ^ "Europeana Newspapers".
- ^ "EUScreen Project". EUScreen Project. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
- ^ "Personalised Access to Cultural Heritage Spaces (PATHS) project". PATHS project. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
External links
- Official website
- Official website (organisation)
- Europeana Version 1.0 project
- Europeana Group projects
- European Commission
- "Europeana: Moving to Linked Open Data", article in Information Standards Quarterly Spring/Summer 2012, v.24, no. 2. (PDF)