"Dream Big"
Idyllic statements perforated the air at the AGM. Europeana's Business Development Director Harry Verwayen shared a video called "Europeana Dreams" which featured inspirational words from Europeana members talking about their open culture dreams and why they believe in the goals of Europeana. Subsequently. camera crews were around all day asking attendees to share their Europeana dream.
From Portal to Platform: 2014 and Beyond
One of the biggest dreams that will become a reality is Europeana’s change from portal to platform. “Users visiting the platform will no longer have to discover heritage in a predefined way” said Harry Verwayen from Europeana. The platform will more visibly promote use, reuse, and sharing.
The improvement of data and metadata quality was also an important topic. It is essential for the future of Europeana. By ensuring that the data is accurate, adequate, and working, users will no longer encounter dead links or pixelated images and have an overall better user experience.
Europeana will continue to enforce the Public Domain Charter but will also strive to make more 20th century content accessible.This is a difficult endeavor but the Europeana network copyright task force which features S&V’s Lotte Belice Baltussen, is making strong headway towards opening up more conent.
Europeana plans to make more content "open, unless". This means making all content whose copyright lies with the institutions and not tied to third party stipulations available for reuse as well as ensuring no copyrights are violated.
Additionally, following the highly successful Europeana 1914-1918 project, there will be a continued emphasis on themes. The next two specific Europeana projects will be Europeana Sounds (Music) and Europeana Ambrosia (Food & Drink).
Strategizing Workshops
The AGM was not all big ideas and big presentations. Smaller work groups allowed attendees to brainstorm and discuss the ideas and concepts featuring in the presentations and contribute their expertise to strategizing Europeana’s future.
Bridging the gap with Creative Industries
The most popular workshop attempted to answer the question Is there a gap between the creative industry and how can it be bridged? The consensus was that there certainly is a gap. It has become more apparent that heritage institutions are not as open as believed to be, meaning that there is not enough quality open content for creatives to use and reuse. There are also more costs than first perceived. Additionally, there is a knowledge sharing gap because memory institutions and creative industries operate in different circles meaning less communications and interaction between the two.
The solutions arrived at during the workshop included, increase communication between the heritage institutions and creative industries, share a focus on end users, and encourage projects to reserve some budget and attention for experimentation.
The Road Ahead
With such big dreams and goals juxtaposed to uncertain funding streams the road ahead is long and difficult. But as was found during the workshops, strategizing sessions and task force meetings, there is no single, simple route. This is positive because what was even more apparent at De Doelen was that the Europeana network members amass an astounding amount of power and knowledge and are capable of finding the best solutions. Therefore, funding for the future is obtainable and thus many's "Europeana Dreams".
At the end of the day the AGM turned into DISH2013 and the Keynote speaker Jason Scott Sadofsky from the Internet Archive reminded everyone why all this hard work is important. Archivists are not just archiving content, they are preserving people's lives, stories, histories, culture, and heritage; the things that add meaning to life. Europeana and Sound & Vision strive to save these memories and make them available for everyone to not only view, but use, reuse, edit, cut and share with the world.
So what will come over the Horizon in 2020? Most likely, the sun, and everyone will awake and see that their dreams have become realities.
All images courtesy of Neil Bates under a Creative Commons 2.0 BY-SA license available on flickr.