EuropeanaConnect project

ECP 528001 (eContentplus)

EuropeanaConnect will deliver core components which are essential for the realisation of the European Digital Library (Europeana) as a truly interoperable, multilingual and user-oriented service for all European citizens. The project will provide the technologies and resources to semantically enrich vast amounts of digital content in Europeana. This will enable semantically based content discovery including support for advanced searching and browsing, allowing for delivery of enhanced services and making Europeana content more accessible, reusable and exploitable.

EuropeanaConnect will facilitate multilingual access by implementing a suite of translation tools and by providing a unique repository of language resources for multilingual processing of objects in Europeana. EuropeanaConnect will deploy key infrastructure components for Europeana: these include

• an OAI Management Infrastructure to handle large-scale data harvesting,
• a Metadata Registry to ensure interoperability,
• a Service Registry to enable integration of external added-value services and
• a Resolution Discovery Service to allow for unique resource identification.

The usability and functionality of Europeana will be significantly enhanced by the integration of a service that enables multimedia annotation, and services that provide geographic information and eBooks-on-demand. The project will provide an innovative visual interface for Europeana and will also make the portal accessible via mobile devices.

EuropeanaConnect will develop a licensing framework for gathering and maintaining rights information for objects, thereby facilitating future licensed content integration. EuropeanaConnect will add a critical mass of audio content to Europeana, adapting and enhancing existing audio-aggregation infrastructure to harvest audio from hundreds of audio archives.

The project uniquely utilises a methodology (deep log analysis) which turns user transaction data into information seeking events from which user satisfaction can be attributed and evaluated. This provides an essential visualisation of what occurs in the virtual space created by Europeana and will ensure user-driven development.

CELI thanks to the experience gained with the CACAO project will contribute to multilingual access to Europeana resources.