Celebrating the success of Europeana Inside

Posted on 25.09.2014 by Museums.EU
The Europeana Inside project formally comes to a close on September 30th 2014 and last Wednesday the Collections Trust held a launch event at the Museum of London for the ECK (Europeana Connection Kit) which has been created and developed through the project.

sg.netadmin/EuInside2.jpg

Europeana Inside is an EU funded project and consists of 26 participants from 10 different European countries. The project kicked off in April 2012 and 30 months later the technical partners have created an innovative solution to contributing content to Europeana and our content partners have currently supplied over half a million new records. Our ‘What’s Inside’ blog showcased the fantastic and diverse new content which has been supplied and sections can be read here.

Europeana Inside has had the primary objective of supporting the Digital Agenda for Europe by achieving a lasting transformation in the quantity, scope and usability of the content available to Europeana from European cultural institutions.

Within this overall ambition, the main objectives of Europeana Inside were:

   -  To open up a significant critical-mass of new digital cultural content from European cultural institutions for delivery to Europeana.
   -  To significantly simplify the process of contributing content to Europeana for cultural institutions and aggregators of all sizes and types throughout Europe.
   -  To help cultural institutions and aggregators overcome barriers to participation in Europeana by part-automating the workflow through which content is made available, and creating tools for the management of access and licensing.
   -  To build upon the framework of standards and protocols established through previous Europeana projects by ensuring that current and future generations of Collections and Digital Asset Management Software are ‘Europeana-ready’.

Our project technical partners developed the ECK (Europeana Connection Kit) within the scope of the project and have part automated the supply of content into Europeana which can be done within a collections management system. The ECK has been implemented into all of our technical partners' collections management systems and has made the supply of content to Europeana much simpler. All of the project technical documentation is available on the website.

Even though the project has come to an end, the ECK is only just beginning and there is a great deal of potential in the service. The ECK will continue to be supported after the project lifetime, which means there is still an opportunity to get involved and give it a go. If you’re from a museum and are keen to start using the ECK, the first step will be to contact your CMS provider and have a chat about further options. If you would like further information please do have a read of our documentation or email Laura Miles.

Source: Collections Trust