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Preparation of data
In order to present the APEnet partners' archival content in a consistent way in the portal, the project consortium has decided to use the international archival standards EAD, EAC and EAG (Encoded Archival Description, Encoded Archival Context and Encoded Archival Guide) for the Archives Portal Europe. These standards are already used by most of the partners and have been adapted for common context during the first months of the project.
For example, the definitions regarding which elements should be implemented or whether an element could be repeated, have lead to a commonly used APEnet EAD schema. This will be the basis for future data preparation and transformation, as well as for future presentation within the portal.
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Mapping and validation of data
Following decisions on an APEnet EAD schema, an online validator has been published to enable the project partners to test their data against that schema. The online validator transforms the data received into APEnet EAD and then validates it against the APEnet EAD schema.
In order for the partners to provide data to the APEnet project, the data will need to pass this validation which is based on a transformation of the file. That transformation needs to be adjusted for each partner, according to the sample files and additional information provided by them.
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Presentation of data
After transformation and validation, the data from the different partners is provided to the central host for presentation. There are two ways to do this: using a harvesting protocol like OAI-PMH to collect the data, or using a direct, password-protected upload via HTTP or FTP. In any event, the infrastructure already implemented by the partners will be supported.
Regarding this workflow and in addition to the different possibilities for data management, indexing and presentation, various tests have been conducted with different technologies, programming languages, databases, repositories, index machines and webservers. The results of these tests will lead to a pilot installation of the portal in the course of 2010.
Presentation of content
Besides the hierarchical presentation of data derived from the archival material itself, other data presentations are being considered, such as a map or time-based search and display. In the scenarios already discussed by the partners, the hierarchical structure would lead from three top layers representing the partners, their holdings guides and their finding aids to the levels fonds, series, subseries, files and items within the finding aids. A short "Google-like" search summary is also an alternative to be considered. |
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Europeana
The Archives Portal Europe will hold a parallel version of the files transformed and packed for the exchange with Europeana, as one of the objectives of the APEnet project is to act as an aggregator for Europeana and to deliver archival content to this cross-domain European cultural heritage portal.
While Europeana is focused on displaying digital objects, the Archives Portal Europe will show these objects within the full context of their finding aids (bottom-up versus top-down approach). Converting the rich information of the APEnet EAD format to the basic Dublin Core-based Europeana metadata model is quite a challenge. However, the APEnet team has succeeded in finding a way to map between these two different metadata formats without much loss of important contextual information. An online converting tool has been developed which will be used to contribute as much content as possible to the next Europeana production release.
At the same time, the APEnet team is contributing to the efforts of the Europeana team to design a more elaborate metadata model for future Europeana releases.
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Dissemination activities
Dissemination activities have been conducted by the project's Work Package 5. Most of the APEnet partners have contributed substantially to the first year of dissemination activities, resulting in many successful outcomes, among them an effectively branded project name and a project website that is a thriving tool for work and communication between the partners.
The results of networking activities have also exceeded expectations and ten national archives and organisations have expressed their interest in joining the project. They are: Landesarchiv of the Fürstentum Liechtenstein, Israel State Archives, Croatian State Archives, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, National Archives of Ireland, National Archives of Belgium, National Archives of the Czech Republic, Swiss Federal Archives, ICARUS project and APEnet EURBICA Liaison Group. The National Archives of Ireland and the National Archives of Belgium have already been active among the APEnet partners. All other interested national archives and organisations have the possibility to join the APEnet consortium as Associates.
APEnet has also established close connections with other projects and initiatives in the same field of interest and there is now a stable and solid ground for future co-operation.
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