Improvements in the Archives Portal Europe

Within the last few months, the APEx technical team has continued working towards the next intermediate release scheduled for the end of August/early September. The new main features that will become available result from the implementation of apeEAC-CPF used to describe persons, families and corporate bodies.
Defined by the WP4 team, the integration of apeEAC-CPF as a new standard for the Archives Portal Europe will allow users to:

• Create apeEAC-CPF entities through the creation form in the dashboard
• Manage apeEAC-CPF files (convert, validate and publish) through the Content Manager in the dashboard
• Implement the second display (visualisation of the content) for apeEAC-CPF entities in the dashboard and portal
• Display the descriptions of apeEAC-CPF entities in the dashboard (preview) and portal (second display)

New search

In this context, the “Advanced Search” section in the portal has been re-designed and re-named to include the option to search for all data published in the portal.
 
This new section (“Search”) consists of three different tabs as follows:

• Search in archives: this tab allows the user to search within the archival descriptions (ie the content of the apeEAD files)
• Search in names: this tab allows the user to search within the descriptions of persons, families and corporate bodies (ie the content of the new standard, the apeEAC-CPF files)
• Search in institutions: this tab allows the user to search within descriptions of the archival institutions (ie the content of the EAG 2012 files)

In this way and depending on the type of information to search, the user can see a customised search section with the appropriate search criteria and filters. The general look and feel with a search results list allowing for refinements and sorting as well as accessing the complete information of a search result in the second display has been adapted for the two new search sections “Search in names” and “Search in institutions”.
 
It is also possible to embed the search box as a widget in your own website – see the example on the Bundesarchiv’s website at http://dpt.archivesportaleurope.net/widgets/bundesarchiv.html.
 
Showing relations
 
The second display for descriptions in the new standard apeEAC-CPF includes general information such as name, date and place of birth or date and place of death as well as biographical notes, occupation or function.
 
In addition, this display features a box on the right showing relations of the person, family or corporate body being described with other entities, with archival materials either created by this person, family or corporate body or naming them, as well as the archival institutions holding these materials. Through this, apeEAC-CPF offers users an additional entry point to the content made available in the Archives Portal Europe.

Other improvements

In addition to other smaller additions and improvements, the next intermediate release includes:

• New icons images for the Archives Portal Europe and Europeana
• New preview of images in the search results list (it always displays one thumbnail if it exists)
• The display of thumbnails and icons in the second display is improved. Now it’s possible to view large collections. In the next intermediate release, all images aren’t loaded when the page loads but rather when browsing through it.

Update on Europeana interoperability

Going the full length – updated EDM conversion to include all levels from apeEAD

The new intermediate portal release includes an updated EDM conversion. So far, the conversion concentrated on the lowest level containing links to the digital objects and included information from higher hierarchical levels therein. The only hierarchical relation taken into account was the one between the fonds or collection and these lowest levels. The reasoning behind this approach was the lack of hierarchical objects display in the Europeana portal. Although this still remains to be resolved, the updated EDM conversion offered in the dashboard as well as in the Data Preparation Tool (DPT) now handles each hierarchical level that is represented in your apeEAD files as a distinguishable unit of description which will be transferred to be a cultural heritage object (CHO) in Europeana. There will be relations built in EDM to link all these CHOs with their related higher and lower levels as well as with units preceding or following on the same hierarchical level. WP2 has not yet had a chance to see how these new conversion results will look in the Europeana portal but we will keep you posted as soon as there is news about it.

In the context of updating the conversion, there also have been new rights statements added according to the changes introduced by Europeana earlier this year. You can read about the different rights statements at the Europeana Pro website. Newly added are the statements “Out of copyright – non-commercial re-use“ for cases where digitisation has been done in a Public Private Partnership and re-use of the digital objects might underlie certain agreements with the private partner (eg a publishing company) and orphan works.

Details and context – future additions to EDM conversion
 
WP2 has started work on its next two deliverables (D2.3 and D2.4) which will look at providing more detailed information on the digital objects themselves as well as adding contextual information on record creators when converting archival data to EDM. Both deliverables will be based on the work of WP4 with regard to apeMETS where there already has been collaboration between both WPs related to apeMETSRights and with regard to apeEAC-CPF. Initially planned for finalisation by the end of August, the writing of both documents will be postponed, aiming instead at the end of September with regard to publication to the project partners. The deliverables will – for their respective standards – detail the mapping as a basis for a default conversion which will be combined with the already existing conversion from apeEAD to EDM. The goal will be to have the least influence possible on the already known workflow and conversion form with the biggest possible effect on the conversion result.
 
Rights at home – update for deliverable D2.2
 
There will be an update of WP2‘s “Report on best practices regarding the administration of rights“. Please be prepared therefore for requests from some WP2 members throughout the autumn for possible updates on the rights administration within your country or – for new partners and those not yet represented in the first iteration of this deliverable – for general information on how rights for use and re-use of archival material, archival descriptions and digital archival objects are handled in your country.