Implementing enhanced OAI-PMH requirements for Europeana

Abstract

Europeana has put in a stretch many known procedures in digital libraries, imposing requirements difficult to be implemented in many small institutions, often without dedicated systems support personnel. Although there are freely available open source software platforms that provide most of the commonly needed functionality such as OAI-PMH support, the migration from legacy software may not be easy, possible or desired. Furthermore, advanced requirements like selective harvesting according to complex criteria are not widely supported. To accommodate these needs and help institutions contribute their content to Europeana, we developed a series of tools. For the majority of small content providers that are running DSpace, we developed a DSpace plug-in, to convert and augment the Dublin Core metadata according to Europeana ESE requirements. For sites with different software, incompatible with OAI-PMH, we developed wrappers enabling repeatable generation and harvesting of ESE-compatible metadata via OAI-PMH. In both cases, the system is able to select and harvest only the desired metadata records, according to a variety of configuration criteria of arbitrary complexity. We applied our tools to providers with sophisticated needs, and present the benefits they achieved.