Exploring Collections as Data in the European context: current initiatives, future prospects

This presentation discusses the integration of cultural heritage data within the European digital ecosystem. Sally Chambers highlights the missions of the British Library and DARIAH, emphasising the importance of making cultural heritage data accessible and usable for research and public engagement. She discusses the evolution from the European Library to Europeana and the development of the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, which aims to create comprehensive datasets from aggregated cultural heritage content.

Chambers advocates for viewing cultural heritage data as humanities research data, bridging the gap between these domains. She mentions the British Library Research Repository’s role in housing diverse datasets and the potential of the Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage to support digital humanities research through advanced AI tools. Chambers concludes by stressing the need for interconnected infrastructures to avoid data silos and enhance the cultural heritage data ecosystem’s overall utility and accessibility.