Keynote at the Supporting User Exploration in Digital Libraries Workshop at Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2012 on Cyprus.

1. Exploring Europeana -
Opportunities, Challenges, Inspirations and Plans
David Haskiya 2012-09-27
#TPDL2012

2. 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

3. 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

4. Let’s explore some browse options

5. Map based search, browse and explore
• Challenge 1: Lack of precise coordinates
• Challenge 2: Performance with large result sets

6. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
• Swedish National Heritage Board Archaeological
Sites&Monuments Search - Fornsök

7. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
• Old Maps Online

8. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
• Neatline for Omeka

9. Timeline based search, browse and explore
• Challenge 1: Lack of time/periods ontology
• Challenge 2: Performance with large result sets

10. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
• Mucha Foundation Interactive Timeline

11. Subject based search, browse and explore
No such feature in our
portal (but there is in our
Exhbitions and Europeana
1914-1918)
• Lack of “full domain and language coverage”-ontology
is the blocker

12. A Europeana attempt with a limited scope
• Europeana 1914-1918 – Stories of the First World War

13. A good example from the GLAM-sector
• The Walters Art Museum

14. Person based search, browse and explore
No such
feature in our
portal
• Doable! Using VIAF and/or Dbpedia as authorities

15. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
• The Walters Art Museum

16. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
• BBC’s Your Paintings

17. Curated sets search, browse and explore
No such feature
in Europeana
• Doable!
• Challenge: To scale and to relate to curation sites like
Pinterest

18. A good example in the GLAM-sector
• The Walters Art Museum

19. But could we just support user curation?
• Pinterest, Gallica’s page with art by Mucha and pins
from Gallica

20. Similarity search, browse and explore
No such feature in
Europeana
• Doable for images
• Challenge: Other media types than audio, quality of
results

21. Good examples in the GLAM-sector
?
• Otherwise for images: Google Image Search&Googles,
TinEye
• And for Audio: Shazam

22. In the pipeline at Europeana

23. 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

24. 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

25. Person based search, browse and explore
Creator Language
navigation control, English
is default
Share&Embed
Creator
portrait
Link to full
Wikipedia
article
12 works in
Basic facts, some Europeana
navigable
Link to all
Attribution works in
Europeana

26. Image similarity search, browse and explore
Link
Link
• Challenge 1: Quality of results
• Challenge 2: Lack of access to high-res images

27. 3D similarity search, browse and explore
Link
• Challenge 1: Quality of results good enough?
• Challenge 2: Lack of 3D-objects in Europeana

28. Concept: Europeana Channels

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. Specific branding
Specific blurb Featured rich
media content
Specific social
media presences
Browse per category
entry-points
Featured thematic
Creator page
Specific Pinterest or
Europeana pinterest
Specific blog or board feed
Europeana blog
category

33. Thematic Creator
page
Shareable and
embeddable
Contextual info
from Dbpedia/
Wikipedia
Semi-editorially
selected works by
this Creator and in
this theme

34. Only hits within
the theme
Theme specific
facets

35. Direct access to
rich media
User created
galleries allowed
All content cleared
for re-use User tags (public
and semantic)
allowed

36. Rich media direct
access
Rich media embed
functionality

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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

40. Thank you for your attention!
Email: david.haskiya@kb.nl
Twitter: @davidhaskiya