OCLC and Europeana collaborate on semantic linking

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OCLC and Europeana are collaborating to investigate ways of creating semantic links between the millions of digital objects that are accessible online through Europeana.eu. The aim is to improve 'similar object' browsing.

Europeana, Europe’s digital library, archive and museum, currently gives people access to over 24 million books, paintings, films, recordings, photographs and archival records from 2,200 partner organisations, through an interface in 29 languages.

Aggregating metadata from these heterogeneous collections leads to quality issues such as duplication, uneven granularity of the object descriptions, ambiguity between original and derivative versions of the same object. For this reason, Europeana and OCLC Research are working together to identify and create semantic links between objects that are connected. Examples of this include: translated copies of the same publication; a painting and a photograph of that painting; different editions of one book; or a collection of letters that belong to the same archive.

The outcomes of the research project will feed into the implementation of the Europeana Data Model (EDM), which is devised to improve the browsing experience of the visitors of Europeana.eu. In addition, the piloting of OCLC Research data clustering and enrichment methods and techniques is expected to inform follow-up activities in more innovative directions and opportunities to develop new data services for third parties.