1. Open Data in the cultural sector:
Cultural heritage data in Europeana
Paul Keller
20 october 2011, Bruxelles

2. Single point of access to Europe’s digital heritage

3. Europeana Strategic Plan 2011 - 2015

4. Leading by example:
Setting standards for
open cultural heritage
data

5. Cultural heritage data in Europeana
Europeana aggregates metadata and previews relating to
more than 20M digital objects
This collection of data is used to provide access to the digital
objects that are made available online by cultural and
scientific heritage institutions all over Europe
In order to achieve the our strategic objectives we need to
be able to publish the data through a variety of channels
(website, APIs, as Linked open Data)
Rights now the conditions under which the data provided to
Europeana can be used are relatively restrictive (similar to a
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike
license)

6. We cannot publish Europeana data as LOD-thus, we
are not able to make full use of the semantic potential
of the web

7. Our API can’t be used on partners’ sites that include
some commercial activity

8. We can’t allow the use of our API by commercial
companies - ones that could generate income for our
partners

9. We can’t share our data with Wikipedia as all
information posted there needs to be available also
for commercial re-use

10. Consultation: Risks identified

11. Consultation: Rewards identified

12. Conclusion of the consultation:
Benefits of open sharing and open distribution outweigh the
risks of open sharing and open distribution
Europeana will remove all restrictions (including the one on
commercial use) from the next version of its data exchange
agreement so that data can be published under CC0
Europeana will publish guidelines for metadata reuse that
address issues of attribution and data quality.
Transition period from the current situation to the full
implementation of the new approach between September
2011 and June 2012

13. New Europeana Data Exchange
Agreement

14. Metadata related to the
digitised objects produced
by the cultural institutions
should be widely and
freely available for re-use.
(Key reccomendation, p.5)

15. What next? Open
content from cultural
heritage institutions

16. Open content in Europeana
The majority of content in Europeana is constituted by
material in the Public Domain. This material should be
labeled accordingly to encourage re-use.
With regards to Public Domain material we need to improve
compliance with the Europeana Public Domain Charter
With regards to material where the copyright is owned by the
contributing cultural heritage institutions we will start to
promote the use of Creative Commons licenses
We need to improve rights clearance mechanisms so that
more content can come online (e.g Extended Collective
Licensing)

17. Cultural information in
the light of the review of
the PSI directive

18. Cultural heritage Data as PSI?
Metadata produced by publicly funded cultural heritage
institutions should be considered to be Public Sector
Information and should be included in the scope of an
improved PSI directive.
With content the picture is more difficult.
Content that is free from rights (Public Domain) or where
the rights are owned by publicly funded institutions should
also be included
All other content does not qualify as public sector
information (even if it is held by publicly funded cultural
heritage institutions).

19. Thank you
Paul Keller
pk@kl.nl