Europeana project researchers Carlo Meghini and Antoine Isaac visited CIRSS from 6-9 March 2012 to share information and discuss the Europeana and IMLS DCC data models.  They led sessions of the CIRSS eResearch Round Table and the CIRSS Seminar Series.  Descriptions and links to slides and audio follow below.

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"Introduction to the Europeana Data Model: Framework & Requirements"
Carlo Meghini, Institute of Information Science & Technology, Italy

The Europeana Data Model (EDM) is the data framework within which all Europeana data is ingested, managed, and published. This talk describes the fundamental parts of EDM and the EDM requirements that data providers need to meet to successfully produce EDM compatible data. The talk will culminate with a discussion of how EDM can accommodate collection-level representations.

Bio: Carlo Meghini is a prime researcher at ISTI, working in the area of digital libraries and digital preservation. In the area of digital libraries, he has been involved in the DELOS Network of Excellence in Digital Libraries, contributing to the DELOS Reference Model for Digital Libraries; he participated in the FP6 Integrated Project BRICKS, aiming at developing a distributed Digital Library Management System, in the DL.org coordination action, and is involved in the making of Europeana since 2007, through the EDLnet, Europeana version 1.0, Europeana version 2.0 and ASSETS Best Practice Networks. In the area of digital preservation, he has been involved in the CASPAR project, an FP6 Integrated Project aiming at developing an OAIS-based architecture for preservation; he has also taught the OAIS Reference Model in several events organized by the CASPAR Project in conjunction with PLANETS and DPE Network of Excellence in Digital Preservation. For more information:http://www.nmis.isti.cnr.it/meghini/.

Suggested readings:
* Europeana documentation, including Primer, is available at:
--> http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/technicaldocuments/
* Paper: The Europeana Linked Open Data Pilot; Haslhofer, Bernhard and Antoine Issac.  Proc Int'l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 2011.
--> dcpapers.dublincore.org/index.php/pubs/article/view/3625

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CIRSS Seminar:
"A Model for Digital Libraries and its Translation to RDF"
Carlo Meghini, Institute of Information Science & Technology, Italy

With the advent of the Web, the traditional concept of library has undergone a profound change: from a collection of physical information resources (mostly books) to a collection of digital resources. Additionally, the notion of digital resource includes not only texts in digital form, but in general any kind of multimedia resources. In a traditional library, physical information resources are managed through well-understood manual procedures, whereas in a digital library digital resources are organized according to a data model, discovered through a query language and managed in a highly automated way. In this paper, we present a data model and query language for digital libraries supporting identification, structuring, metadata support, re-use and discovery of digital resources. The model that we propose is inspired by the Web and it is formalized as a first-order theory, certain models of which correspond to the notion of digital library. We demonstrate the feasibility of the model and its suitability for practical applications by providing a full translation of the model to RDF and of the query language to SPARQL.

Bio:  Carlo Meghini is a prime researcher at ISTI, working in the area of digital libraries and digital preservation. In the area of digital libraries, he has been involved in the DELOS Network of Excellence in Digital Libraries, contributing to the DELOS Reference Model for Digital Libraries; he participated in the FP6 Integrated Project BRICKS, aiming at developing a distributed Digital Library Management System, in the DL.org coordination action, and is involved in the making of Europeana since 2007, through the EDLnet, Europeana version 1.0, Europeana version 2.0 and ASSETS Best Practice Networks. In the area of digital preservation, he has been involved in the CASPAR project, an FP6 Integrated Project aiming at developing an OAIS-based architecture for preservation; he has also taught the OAIS Reference Model in several events organized by the CASPAR Project in conjunction with PLANETS and DPE Network of Excellence in Digital Preservation. For more information: http://www.nmis.isti.cnr.it/meghini/.

"Europeana and Linked Open Data"
Antoine Isaac,  Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Europeana recently launched a small animation advertising Linked Open Data to its network of partner cultural institutions: http://vimeo.com/36752317. Why? Why now?  This talk will briefly introduce Linked Data technology, as especially seen from the perspective of cultural institutions like libraries. It will then present the particular perspective of Europeana, who has recently openly released part of its metadata as Linked Data -- see http://data.europeana.eu . How can we benefit? How can we contribute?  A technical perspective on exchanging and enriching data will be presented, and complemented with a more strategical one, where Linked Data paradigm goes hand in hand with parallel efforts to make cultural data open (http://pro.europeana.eu/support-for-open-data).

Bio:  Antoine Isaac works as scientific coordinator for Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/) and researcher in the Web and Media group (http://wiki.cs.vu.nl/web-media/) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.  He has been investigating and promoting the use of Semantic Web and Linked Data technology in the Cultural Heritage environment since his PhD studies in Computer Science at the Universit Paris IV Sorbonne (http://www.paris-sorbonne.fr/en/) and the Institut national de l'audiovisuel (http://www.ina.fr/). His work focuses especially on the representation and interoperability of collections and their vocabularies.