Metadata management

All information about the cultural heritage objects are captured in metadata. This has to be done in a consistent way to produce a high quality data base, in order to be able to use the data for the long-term and for cross-institutional research, as well as  the implementation of several search options (filter, facet, simple and advanced search) and elaborate presentation scenarios. Instructions for the collection and quality control of data are all the more important in this project, since a variety of different types of sources from different institutions and disciplines are interconnected. We support the use of controlled vocabularies, authority files and thesauri (Geonames, GND, ...). On the basis of an evaluation of the objects and the features of the web portal, a generic data model has been developed. It includes core categories (object and media type, date, place ...) for different object and data types. These basic data are mandatory and will be mapped to the EDM (Europeana Data Model). For further support, institutional guidelines were developed to guarantee an overall consistent database including all collections involved.

Metadata standards

Text Encoding Initiative (TEI): guidelines for the encoding and annotation of text (manuscript description, transcribed texts, …) > http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml

Lightweight Information Describing Objects (LIDO): XML format for the annotation of museum objects; it is an international development based on museumdat and CIDOC-CRM compliant. > http://network.icom.museum/cidoc/working-groups/lido/what-is-lido/

Europeana Data Model (EDM): standard for aggregation harvested metadata, used as smallest common denominator for all institutions. > http://pro.europeana.eu/share-your-data/data-guidelines/edm-documentation