Europeana Research Invites: Using European Infrastructures for Humanities research: Scoping Content, Tools and Users

Europeana Research aims to create stronger connections between humanities research and the digitised content of Europe’s galleries, museums, libraries and archives.

Although much of Europeana’s dataset is already available for reuse via its API, portal and linked data set, researchers require access to specific sets of tools and services that provide critical mass of content.

On Monday, October 12th and Tuesday, October 13th 2015, Europeana Research invites key stakeholders (researchers / e-content experts / digital humanists) who have worked on the issues specifically related to use of digital content for research to discuss the following topics:

1. Scoping and understanding the range of available digital content and metadata: what is available, what are the barriers to knowing what's available (discoverability, awareness, but also cultural issues and disciplinary issues that may inhibit the use of open content). A report of work done in this area within the Europeana Cloud project will start the debate.

2. Using digital content and metadata for research: what are the barriers to use and re-use of content? Are the aggregations of content, and the tools or services that are available adequate for researchers? If not, how can European Infrastructures scope user requirements to discover what is needed? How should such infrastructures interact with cultural heritage institutions? And what should cultural heritage institutions do to make their digitised content more amenable for research use ?

And in a landscape of short-term project funding, how is the dialogue about research needs sustained?

3. Who are the Users: How can we cultivate the communities of practice that use the content, understand their requirements, and capture this in the process of designing content strategies and tools? How can use of digital content contribute to the sustainability of infrastructure services over the long term?

Do we need more formal ways to describe and understand use of digital content for research: is there a 'methodological layer' needed for research infrastructures?

Outcomes of the event will be recommendations to the aforementioned questions.

Date: Monday, October 12th and Tuesday, October 13th 2015
Time: Monday, October 12th morning to Tuesday, October 13th lunch time.
Venue: R.C. "Athena", Institute for the Management of Information Systems, Artemidos 6 & Epidavrou, GR-151 25 Maroussi, Greece

Event Chairs:
Agiatis Benardou, Digital Curation Unit, ATHENA R.C.
Alastair Dunning, The Europeana Foundation
Lorna Hughes, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Contact and RSVP: Agiatis Benardou (a.benardou@dcu.gr), Eliza Papaki (e.papaki@dcu.gr)

This workshop is funded via the Europeana Cloud CIP-ICT PSP (http://pro.europeana.eu/europeana-cloud) and the DARIAH-ATTIKI EFRD projects