Europeana Network
What is the Europeana Network?
The Europeana Network is an open forum for experts across Europe, from content providers and aggregators to providers of technical, legal and strategic knowledge and the creative industries. This forum represents and reflects the diversity of Europeana and gives its members an opportunity to voice their views.
The Europeana Network is united by a common cultural mission to ‘work together to improve access to Europe’s cultural heritage in balanced and sustainable ways’. It unites all individuals who have a stake in Europeana to ensure an effective dialogue between data providers or other contributors to the European information space, and the Foundation and the Office, at both strategic and practical levels. The Network also advises its members on strategy and policy from a content providers' point of view.
Why engage with the Network?
- Your voice heard: shape the future of the sector. Europeana is a facilitator of innovation and a catalyst for change. Europeana Network members influence strategic decisions and promote their benefits to the whole sector.
- Your network expanded: collaborate with peers and experts. The Europeana Network connects professionals and facilitates collaboration by promoting the exchange of ideas and information.
- Your learning experience: increase knowledge and find new opportunities. The Europeana Network is the place to be to share new ideas and important results through its interdisciplinary forum.
Who represents the Network to the Board?
The Europeana Network elects six officers for a two-year term. They contribute to the decision-making of the Europeana Foundation, the governing body of Europeana.
The elected officers of the Europeana Network are:
- Anne Bergman-Tahon, Federation of European Publishers, abergman[at]fep-fee.eu, elected in Sep 2012
- Bengt Wittgren, Murberget Länsmuseet Västernorrland, Sweden, bengt.wittgren[at]murberget.se, elected in Sep 2012
- Gunnar Urtegaard, National Archive Norway, gunnar.urtegaard[at]arkivverket.no, elected in Mar 2012
- Johan Oomen, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, joomen[at]beeldengeluid.nl, elected in Sep 2012
- Louise Edwards, The European Library, Louise.Edwards[at]KB.nl, elected in Apr 2013
- Nick Poole, Collections Trust, UK, nick[at]collectionstrust.org.uk, elected in Sep 2012
Join the Europeana Network
Every individual that contributes data, technology or knowledge to Europeana is encouraged to join the Europeana Network. Thus, if you have a stake in Europeana, then please register for membership.
Events and engagement
The Network holds an annual meeting with its members, and holds other meetings when needed. Every member of the Europeana Network is automatically added to the Europeana Network mailing list to be kept up-to-date with new developments. To fully benefit from the knowledge-sharing capacity of the Network, every member is also invited to join the Europeana Network LinkedIn group.
It is important that members of the Europeana Network are actively engaged with Europeana. To fully benefit from the knowledge-sharing potential of the Network, we expect, for example, contribution of information on important developments, new projects to be developed and participation in workshops and Europeana Network Task Forces. All members also have a role in promoting Europeana and the implementation of the Europeana API and communicating to their own national and domain networks the value of providing content to Europeana.
This value includes:
- improving users' experience by integrating all types of content
- enriching the content by displaying it alongside related material from other countries, other domains
- transferring knowledge between different institutions, domains and countries
- sharing best practice and common standards
- being part of an award-winning, highly visible portal that is the focus of political attention
- demonstrating the relevance of cultural and scientific heritage institutions to new generations of users