Links in page:
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How did you first hear about europeana.eu, and that you could share your collections on our platform?
Ismo? 2009, FHA was active on Europeana almost since the beginning; they had their own platform even before that.
Maria? 2011, worked at a museum of photography at the time.
Ismo, why did you share your content on Europeana? What is the value?
We trying to get as much impact on our collections as possible; they want as many people as possible seeing and using their items, open access policy
Sharing on the European level is important;
Europeana is good quality and is well known;
Maria - Europeana is doing a great job with rights statement resources etc., helps member states so they don't have to figure this out themselves; she values asking the questions and sharing the answers together; important for the whole digital cultural field;
Ismo - many Finnish CHIs have content that is not just Finnish but also European content that wider Europeans want to see. This is why we publish in English as well, not just Finnish and Swedish.
The API’s will be very important when you think about the data space aspect; how will they work for both content providers and aggs; also tracking usage through api’s, how much their content is reused and uploaded on FINNA and Europeana, and API’s is the way to upload and use them
What was the process like? The good and the bad, any confusion, from both perspectivesIsmo?Maria?
Where did/do you go for help? Are there documents or people you turn to for support?
Maria - aggregators help the CHI’s mostly with communication and translation of resources
From your perspective, how could the process of sharing your data on Euorpeana.eu be improved?
Maria, how can we support the aggregation side better?
Help by giving CHI’s the stats tools like the dashboard, and tier reports on their data - giving CHI’s direct feedback on their own collections
the CHI’s are used to it because they track already through their own sites, and FINNA
Provide an introduction to providers, like a wiki for CHI’s: “this is how you use this tool and here is the link” etc.
Ismo - for content providers, “self service is the best way, automation is even better”
Is there anything you DON’T want to Europeana to help with, or get involved with?
They communicate with content providers in Finnish, they don't expect Europeana to do this
She has no concern about Europeana coming “in between”; they are happy to support with communication and language support, but the easier we can make the CHI-Aggregator relationship, the better
What other tools/platforms are you using to help you share data? to package it etc.?e.g. Mint, etc.
Do you share your collections on other platforms, such as your museum website? Why/why not?
FINNA (aggregator’s website)
Are there any other comments or suggestions you have, that we haven’t covered yet?Can we get in touch in the future?
Ismo = YES; and he has other members that are interested too (CHI perspective)
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How did you first hear about Europeana.eu, and that you could share your collections on our platform?
2006 or 7; when it was being built; having conversations with Jill directly over the phone
Why did you share your data with us?
Funding! First EU-sponsored digitisation projects at that time; so everyone was encouraged to share as much as possible quickly; CHI and universities who were developing the aggregation technology and processes
Athena and Athena plus - general collection projects
Them projects too like Europeana Fashion, Food and Drink, Photography; we all participated in these projects
No quality check, it was a big push for everyone to digitise as much as they could financed purely by quantity of objects submitted, so sometimes that meant lower quality
Also sharing culture and open access to data
Motivation now?
We are currently a bit disappointed; we did job interviews with archaeology and art historian students last week and no one had heard of Europeana; we would want to see Europeana be more well known
What is the process of sharing data currently like?
We don’t anymore! In the era of the big projects, you had the aggregators which were pretty well known. After the projects, there were a few aggregators left, but there is no activation there.
It’s really up to the institution to start uploading again, to find an aggregator, hope that the EDM hasn't changed, or any step in that complex process hasn't changed; and hope that you don't make a mistake, because once you upload your data to Europeana they are there and its very difficult to modify or fix; thats risky.
That process is so complex we barely have colleagues that can do this, they have to know the collection so well, need ICT skills and to be able to read XML; what’s in it for us now? We wouldn't get any funding, we get some exposure but how much? Europeana isnt very well known, and we have no way to track traffic to our site.
3D - uses Sketchfab; the ideal is that Europeana would provide the system
for our CHI’s the time to create digital records is very costly; and so you only want to do it once; and you want to be able to make corrections easily and quickly - “the closer you are to the final display, the better”
Example: “We have a great new photography exhibition, if there were a way to get this exhibition up right away on Europeana that would be great for both of us.”
He has noticed that the number of total objects (50+ million) isn't increasing on the website, “so we are not the only ones with this issue”.
From what you can remember, what worked/what were the positive or most rewarding moments?From what you can remember, what were the most challenging or confusing steps in the process?What are the challenges or confusion you still experience, as a providing institution with Europeana?
EDM data mapping, we are a big CMS (collections management system) provider, nobody has a proper EDM export model; we’d hope that the aggregator still has. Fitting connector for your metadata, and then its their responsibility to get it to Europeana
YES TO DASHA’S IDEA of mapping the metadata on the item page to what the CHI is putting in
Where did/do you go for help? Are there documents or people you turn to for support?From your perspective, how could the process of sharing your data on Euorpeana.eu be improved?
What other tools/platforms are you using?
michael cultur (french/italian), predecessor to europeana
CARARE (english/italian archaeology)
they both still provide agg services
Do you share your collections on other platforms, such as your museum website?
Why/why not?Our own site, and Europeana, a bit on Sketchfab,
Are there any other comments or suggestions you have, that we haven’t covered yet?Can we get in touch in the future?
e.g. When we have a proposed design to show you - YES
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The Welcome pack itself
Concept: “A wiki for CHI’s; for example, showing this is how you use this tool and here is the link.” - Finnish Aggregator
Potentially a LOT of value in the European-level curation aspect
Seeing their collections and items next to others' from across Europe, either in collections/experiences/stories curated themselves or by us
Their collections get a larger and different audience at the European-level
Different items may perform better at the European level
e.g. The Finnish Heritage Agency has not only Finnish items. A large part of their collections are items from elsewhere in Europe/the world, and the are interested in making those items in particular available on Europeana, and measuring how large and what kind of audience accesses them (e.g. from which countries)
Do we offer support for CHI’s to publish in English as well, or other languages that are important at the European-level? If so, this is a valuable resource to mention (see point above).
Statistics dashboards
CHI’s feel that they want to get their stats directly from us, and at least some Aggregators agree
“Self-service is the best way, automation is even better.” - CHI
“The easier Europeana can make the CHI-Aggregator relationship, the better” - Aggregator
They are interested in usage statistics AND tier reports (frontend and backend, basically)
High numbers are good, but the “what” (e.g. what items) is more helpful to know, from a CHI perspective, because it levels-up their own curation and comparisons on their side
If we can figure out how to do this in the dashboard, then we should definitely advertise it on the Welcome Pack page
Dashboards for Aggregators was a popular idea, which show all of their CHI’s
They are interested in our user segments information too! They would report on this. Specifically professional/research institutions, tourists, students, researchers.
API’s
That they can use our APIs (search specifically) for their own sites/digital exhibitions
Also interested in API’s which measure items uploads (?) - see FHA interview, point 2.f.
Training/other resources
YES TO DASHA’S IDEA of mapping the metadata on the item page to what the CHI is putting in
Other
Advertise that they can use our user-generated content (e.g. galleries) for their own in-house exhibitions - is this true, technically speaking?
“Submit a blog” sounds like extra work. “Share your [existing] exhibition [from your own site]”, if we helped them do this, is better - it already exists, they are proud of it and want to share it.
The process of sharing data feels onerous in general - “It’s really up to the institution to start uploading again, to find an aggregator, hope that the EDM hasn't changed, or any step in that complex process hasn't changed; and hope that you don't make a mistake, because once you upload your data to Europeana they are there and its very difficult to modify or fix; thats risky.”
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Additional feature requests:
**Would like to see number of downloads, number of clicks through to provider website, seeing where visitors are from (breakdown of country) etc.
Yes to agg-level dashboards eventually, showing all of their CHI’s together.
seeing popular items by page visits, downloads, and adding to galleries, and likes.
“how did somebody end up looking at your page” - search terms that people used to get here, so we can utilise them throughout our metadata to make us more findable.
COMMS FLOW - how to reduce bounce rate [on a catalogue page].
would be interested to look at the IIIF angle as well - if IIIF items have longer time spent on them.
some descriptive text describing the difference between no. of visits vs page views
Wants to see a flow chart of user traffic - “where do they go next”
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I want to say this is all part of a big merry-go-round - people go to europeana, then to library resources, or they could go off to the BnF or another aggregator, to Wikipedia or social media - they are all connected, we are part of this big data network, we are contributing to public access/public good; so I’m interested to see where we sit in that network.”
Value adds
He needs to report to managers in the BL, showing the benefits of sharing on Europeana, going to the work of maintaining and adding more data: “it’s raising the profile, it’s showing related data alongside other data from other providers”.
I’m trying to demonstrate at the BL that by investing in putting items on Europeana, it’s worth it to us; but also, a click back is not always necessary from a user’s perspective, it being accessed period has value, even if it’s on Europeana.
The dashboards are a value-add when talking to potential new providers as an aggregator
Sharing the usage statistics with the community:
he thinks it should be very openly shared;
some CHI’s might be happy to share with their peers; they could compare to the average, or to europeana as a whole (have a europeana dashboard that everyone can see)
he’s interested in comparing for example bl.uk and compare with britishmuseum.org
create an opportunity for providers to share (e.g. a checkbox that they opt in to to post up their results on a board somewhere that they can all check and see
audio, text, image? whats the stuff they’re looking at most (e.g. match to our search filters, or item metadata fields, for example - what KINDS of content is doing well;
shows that what you’re doing has an impact, and allows you to make some better/creative decisions
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from there; if you’re creating great content and sharing high quality metadata then it proves it’s worth it
SERVICE BLUEPRINT/planned communications flow, useful information to include in the info guide
europeana-level popular search terms and high-performing data; “encouraging and nurturing that 2-way relationship” USE CASE - provider published to europeana years ago, this reminds them that people are using their content and interested in it, here’s how to imporve (popular search terms, tips for what NOT to put (e.g. crytpic titles); he’s been putting in wikidata for describing gothic/proto-gothic script in the metadata - people would want to know if the search terms “gothic” would have been used, so they would remember to put that in the script
cyclical process where people are looking at their data and adding more, and people can see that it’s helping more
as an aggregator, he has no problem with europeana contacting chi’s directly when it makes sense; “i think that would be good;” as an agg it would be useful to have that same information as well - for example receiving a folder of report for all the different chi’s, the
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europeana-level performance
it can be difficult for aggs to access chi’s who’ve shared data a long time ago , that staff member has left, that connection has grown cold;
Who else would be interested in data provider usage statistics?
the ENA are the stakeholders, and theres a lot of those members, who would be interested (rob davis, Sophie Taes as an agg has seen it)
Among the steering group for the EAF would be very interested in looking at in their workshops - let Henning know that ongoing discussion about this
question - can multiple staff email register to get into the email flow?
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Going through aggregators is cumbersome, getting a direct link is ideal
Ismo usability test - if I was using it for the first time, this type of basic information would be useful to me
Video is annoying/distracting
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; suggests an image that’s more related, not moving
He expected to be able to click a button below usage statistics, since that’s what the page is about
The other sections, he knows where to go directly on Europeana Pro (he utilises the direct links he’s getting in his emails from them, or he goes to Europeana Pro landing page to find what else is new) so he doesn't need links to them right now; but some new people might want to go and see them.
But other people may remember that they’ve seen this page and expect those links to lead them to Support or Exposure-related resources on Pro (e.g. to expect this page to act as a landing page)
Minna has 40 Europeana bookmarks including EDM page (Julie to follow-up for a screenshot of these, to understand what her priority pages are to better inform our Merge Project).
Promoting collections block - galleries (Pokori (?) project) - some Europeana galleries were made using their collections around 2 years ago; last March there was a blog about their collections.
What is the value of it? Ismo says that through the statistics, they want to directly see what kind of impact the galleries blog etc really have had on their europeana traffic
Minna: agg runs workshops for existing and potential new providers, they tell them about the possibilities; “how big is the visibility, how will it actually affect us positively?” - it makes it easier for aggs to promote us and convince provders that it’s worth it;
Ismo - language is one key to promote your collections; one of their major collections has metadata that has been translated into english and it’s probably used the most (was recently in a europeana post about mining)
Providing institutions block: permanent 4 or 5 institutions isn’t a great idea, rotating through them, give more of an impression of the scale and diversity of the group; having the logos be links would be expected
He would expect they go to the Europeana page for that institution (Organisation)
The form: what else should we ask
“Sector” is not clear - Which GLAM sector? Which sub-sector? these delineations are not always clear, it’s not easy for them to define or identify - if we want to know, maybe we should show some options from which they can choose from
Email address entry field is missing!
What happens if multiple people sign up through the form?
It’s actually a good thing - many people are interested to see it, and to be in touch with us