Exploring Europeana - Opportunities, Challenges, Inspirations and Plans

Exploring Europeana - Opportunities, Challenges, Inspirations and Plans

David Haskiya 2012-09-27

#TPDL2012

A little bit about me and this presentation

• Once an archaeologist, now Product Developer and Product Owner

• I’ll talk about browse options, present and future, in the Europeana portal

A little bit about the Europeana portal

• Cross-domain: Libraries, Archives, Museums and Audio-visual archives

• Multi-lingual: Metadata in 30 languages and content in more than 30 languages

Let’s explore some browse options

Map based search, browse and explore

• Challenge 1: Lack of precise coordinates• Challenge 2: Performance with large result sets

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• Swedish National Heritage Board Archaeological Sites&Monuments Search - Fornsök

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• Old Maps Online

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• Neatline for Omeka

Timeline based search, browse and explore

• Challenge 1: Lack of time/periods ontology• Challenge 2: Performance with large result sets

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• Mucha Foundation Interactive Timeline

Subject based search, browse and explore

• Lack of “full domain and language coverage”-ontology is the blocker

No such feature in our portal (but there is in our

Exhbitions and Europeana 1914-1918)

A Europeana attempt with a limited scope

• Europeana 1914-1918 – Stories of the First World War

A good example from the GLAM-sector

• The Walters Art Museum

Person based search, browse and explore

• Doable! Using VIAF and/or Dbpedia as authorities

No such feature in our

portal

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• The Walters Art Museum

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• BBC’s Your Paintings

Curated sets search, browse and explore

• Doable!• Challenge: To scale and to relate to curation sites like

Pinterest

No such feature in Europeana

A good example in the GLAM-sector

• The Walters Art Museum

But could we just support user curation?

• Pinterest, Gallica’s page with art by Mucha and pins from Gallica

Similarity search, browse and explore

• Doable for images• Challenge: Other media types than audio, quality of

results

No such feature in Europeana

Good examples in the GLAM-sector

• Otherwise for images: Google Image Search&Googles, TinEye

• And for Audio: Shazam

?

In the pipeline at Europeana

Features we’re considering for 2013

• Spatio-temporal browse in the Exhibitions • Using the Neatline plug-in for Omeka

• Person based search and browse in the Portal• Image Similarity Search in the Portal

• And perhaps 3D similarity search

• User curated sets/Digital Storytelling in the Portal• And with limited subject scope: Subject based browse

in the Portal• Supported by improved semantic enrichment and ingestion of

contextual resources from partners

• The latter two we’re likely to do within a concept we’re working on: Europeana Channels

Auto-completion, suggested interaction

• Completion suggestion will begin at the 3rd character • In decending order of frequency (so there’s an error in the mockup above…)

• Choosing a suggested auto-completion will immediately execute the search

• The user can of course ignore the completions and type in what they want

• Completion suggestion will comprise phrases• The letters users have typed in matching a suggestion will be bolded (not

shown in the mockup above)

• Completion suggestions will show the number of hits if chosen• Completion suggestions will show from which field the

• This field name will be shown right-aligned in the suggestions:

• Title, Creator, Subject, Time/Period, Place

• If a specific field has been chosen in the fielded search dropdown only suggestion from that index will be received and when the search is executed it will be as a fielded query

Creator portrait

Basic facts, some navigable

Attribution

Language control, English is default

Creator navigation

Share&Embed

Link to full Wikipedia article

12 works in Europeana

Link to all works in Europeana

Person based search, browse and explore

Image similarity search, browse and explore

• Challenge 1: Quality of results• Challenge 2: Lack of access to high-res images

Link

Link

3D similarity search, browse and explore

• Challenge 1: Quality of results good enough?• Challenge 2: Lack of 3D-objects in Europeana

Link

Concept: Europeana Channels

Europeana as a Portal Platform

• If we can’t make the entirety of the Europeana portal browseable…

• …we can, together with our partners, make sections of it browseable…

• …by extending the Europeana portal to become a platform for thematic channels

Europeana Channels are…

• “Sections” of the portal offering a richer user experience based on selected thematic content• Vertical search/Domain specific search

• Created in collaboration with Europeana network partners/projects/content providers• Open for User Created Content/Annotations via e.g.

Semantic tagging, Geotagging and Digital Storytelling

• Based on a generic framework allowing the creation of a (theoretically) unlimited number of channels

Wikipedia says…

A vertical search engine, as distinct from a general web search engine focuses on a specific segment of online content. The vertical content area may be based on topicality, media type, or genre of content.

Vertical search offers several potential benefits over general search engines:

- Greater precision due to limited scope

- Leverage domain knowledge including taxonomies and ontologies - Support specific unique user tasks

Domain-specific search solutions focus on one area of knowledge, creating customized search experiences, that because of the domain's limited corpus and clear relationships between concepts, provide extremely relevant results for searchers

Specific branding

Specific blurb

Specific social media presences

Featured rich media content

Browse per category entry-points

Specific blog or Europeana blog category

Specific Pinterest or Europeana pinterest board feed

Featured thematic Creator page

Contextual info from Dbpedia/ Wikipedia

Shareable and embeddable

Semi-editorially selected works by this Creator and in this theme

Thematic Creator page

Theme specific facets

Only hits within the theme

Direct access to rich media

All content cleared for re-use

User created galleries allowed

User tags (public and semantic) allowed

Rich media direct access

Rich media embed functionality

A richer user experience

• Exploration by browsing and filtering based on faceted Type and Subject ontologies

• Direct access to full media in the portal• Functions for re-use including full media

• User created galleries, collections and other re-use functions

• Ability to remix, tag and annotate records and media• Ability to upload personal content for inclusion in Europeana• Integration of the Eu. Awareness Digital Storytelling

Platform

• Access to contextually relevant Creator pages• Access to contextually relevant external sources• Other features, dependent on rich thematic content,

can be added incrementally• And also be specific per thematic entry point

Higher demands on content

• Must be segmented by topic or genre• Example used in this concept: The First World War

• Must be classified into consistent types and/or subjects

• Should include direct media links• Should be licensed for re-use• Should contain rich freetext descriptions• Should be multi-lingual

The portal as collaborative publication platform

• Europeana partners can use the Europeana portal as their own end-user destination site

• Europeana partners can brand and style their channel• Europeana partners can access the usage statistics for

their channel • Europeana partners can embed their channel on their

own site• Europeana partners can interact with users of their

channel through semantic tagging and user created stories

Thank you for your attention!

Email: david.haskiya@kb.nl

Twitter: @davidhaskiya