Europeana Creative. EDM Endpoint. Custom Views

The paper discusses the Europeana Creative project which aims to facilitate re-use of cultural heritage metadata and content by the creative industries. The paper focuses on the contribution of Ontotext to the project activities. The Europeana Data Model (EDM) is further discussed as a new proposal for structuring the data that Europeana will ingest, manage and publish. The advantages of using EDM instead of the current ESE metadata set are highlighted. Finally, Ontotext’s EDM Endpoint is presented, based on OWLIM semantic repository and SPARQL query language. A user-friendly RDF view is presented in order to illustrate the possibilities of Forest - an extensible modular user interface framework for creating linked data and semantic web applications

Learning from Digital Library Evaluations

In this paper we analyse evaluation studies of the Europeana digital library from its launch in 2009 until today. Using Saracevic’s digital library evaluation framework, the studies are categorised by their constructs, contexts, criteria, and methodologies. Concentrating on studies that evaluate Europeana services or single components, we show gaps in the evaluation of certain Europeana aspects. Finally, we derive strategies for building an evaluation archive that serves as memory and supports comparisons.Im vorliegenden Artikel analysieren wir Evaluationsstudien der digitalen Bibliothek Europeana von 2009 bis heute. Unter Berücksichtigung von Saracevic’ Evaluationsframework für digitale Bibliotheken werden die Studien nach ihren Konstrukten, Kontexten, Kriterien und Methodologien kategorisiert. Die Analyse konzentriert sich auf Studien, die Dienstleistungen oder einzelne Komponenten von Europeana evaluieren, und zeigt Lücken in der Evaluation bestimmter Aspekte von Europeana auf. Schließlich werden Strategien diskutiert, um ein Evaluationsarchiv zu entwickeln, welches sowohl der Langzeitarchivierung dient als auch Vergleiche von Evaluationsergebnissen unterstützt.Peer Reviewe

User Navigation in Large-Scale Distributed Digital Libraries: The Case of the Digital Public Library of America

This article presents the findings of a case study that examined user navigation in a large-scale digital library in the context of academic use. Using the Digital Public Library of America as case, the study explored user navigation and understanding of a distributed model of large-scale digital libraries. The DPLA model involves two- or three-step navigation pathways. Most study participants could navigate the DPLA distributed, multi-layered system effectively. This study found some confusion among the participants when they had to move through a three-step process to locate digital objects provided by a metadata aggregator service hub. The study participants also pointed out the advantages of a distributed model in collocating digital resources and connecting users to a wide range of digital libraries

Usability evaluation of a research repository and collaboration website

This article reports results from an empirical usability evaluation of Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central as part of the effort to develop an open access research repository and collaboration platform for human-animal bond researchers. By repurposing and altering key features of the original HUBzero system, Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central hosts previously published materials from related disciplines and an extensive bibliography, in addition to traditional hub materials such as tools and datasets. Seven graduate students in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Purdue University participated in the usability evaluation. Tasks included exploring the system, finding an article in the repository, submitting an article to the repository, adding bibliographic information of an article to the repository, and using interaction features such as user groups. Participants also answered open questions regarding their overall experience and rated Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central\u27s usability using the System Usability Scale. Response measures included task successfulness, navigational steps, task time, participant comments, and behavior notes recorded by the researcher. Results of the evaluation showed that the overall user experience of Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative Central was satisfactory but also indicated a number of usability issues. Participants had difficulty inputting metadata such as resource type and author information when submitting an article to the repository. There were also interface design issues regarding layout and consistency. It is expected that findings from this study and the evaluation methodology can be extended to the development and evaluation of similar research repository systems

Cultural Heritage Information Practices and iSchools Education for Achieving Sustainable Development

Since 2015, UNESCO began the process of inculcating culture as part of the UN’s post-2015 Sustainable (former Millennium) Development Goals, which member countries agreed to achieve by 2030. By conducting a thematic analysis of the 25 UN commissioned reports and policy documents, this research identifies 14 broad cultural heritage information themes that need to be practiced in order to achieve cultural sustainability, of which information platforms, information sharing, information broadcast, information quality, information usage training, information access, information collection, and contribution appear to be the significant themes. An investigation of education on cultural heritage informatics and digital humanities at iSchools (www.ischools.org) using a gap analysis framework demonstrates the core information science skills required for cultural heritage education. The research demonstrates that: (i) a thematic analysis of cultural heritage policy documents can be used to explore the key themes for cultural informatics education and research that can lead to sustainable development; and (ii) cultural heritage information education should cover a series of skills that can be categorized in five key areas, viz., information, technology, leadership, application, and people and user skills

Exploring Salient Thumbnail Generation for Archival Collections Online

This study developed and evaluated a method for generating thumbnails for archival documents utilizing open source image saliency software. Salient thumbnails were evaluated against a baseline by running a lab study that assessed the thumbnails' usefulness during finding and re-finding tasks. Results did not find any significant difference in time, user confidence, or user preference of salient thumbnails compared to the baseline. However, salient thumbnails resulted in improved accuracy during re-finding tasks, suggesting that they may offer some advantage for representing archival correspondence.Master of Science in Information Scienc

A user-centric evaluation of the Europeana digital library

Usability of digital libraries is an essential factor for the user attraction. Europeana, a digital library which is built around the idea to provide a single access point to the European cultural heritage, is paying special attention to the user needs and behaviour. This paper presents user-related outcomes addressing the dynamics of user perception from a study which involved focus groups and media labs in four European countries. While Europeana was positively perceived by all groups in the beginning of the study, some groups were more critical after performing a task which involved eight types of searches. The study gathered opinions on the difficulties encountered which help to understand better users' expectations within the content and functionality domains of digital libraries which would be of possible interest to all stakeholders in digital library projects. © 2010 Springer-Verlag