The European Film Gateway

EFG - The European Film Gateway is the aggregator for the film archive domain. In addition to aggregating data for Europeana, EFG also makes the consolidated metadata from its providing archives accessible through its own portal at www.europeanfilmgateway.eu. EFG features collections from its currently 58 contributing archives and works actively to improve data and to make available new collections on a regular basis. EFG represents partners from more than 25 countries, giving access to over 700,000 film historical documents as preserved in European film archives and cinémathèques: photos, posters, programs, periodicals, censorship documents, rare feature and documentary films, newsreels and other materials.

In addition to data publication, the EFG offers:

• Advice on reparation and delivery of metadata to EFG/Europeana and other national and trans-national initiatives,
• Advice on the use of Europeana rights statements, Creative Commons Licences and IPR in the film sector in general,
• Advice on the Europeana Publishing Framework.
• Data mapping: Unless content providers can deliver data in EFG format or EDM, native xml will be mapped to the EFG schema and EDM.
• Data consolidation: EFG will match vocabularies applied in local databases to controlled EFG vocabularies to allow for a harmonized display on the EFG and Europeana portals.
• Data enrichment: In some cases, EFG will automatically enrich metadata provided by partners.
• Data provided in connection with WWI-related materials will automatically be made part of the curated WWI section on EFG and at europeana1914-1918.eu

Technical conditions for working with the EFG:

• Metadata must be available in XML for upload or for harvesting through OAI-PMH,
• EFG strongly encourages data providers to deliver their data in EFG or EDM format, but will also accept native XML and map it to the EFG schema and from there to EDM.
• Digital media (images, text, video) must be published online and made available via a direct link.
• The rights to the content must be cleared and all content clearly rights labeled.

For more detailed information, please refer to the EFG Data Provider Handbook.

Limitations: Providers must be not-for-profit film archives and cinematheques or cultural heritage institutions with film collections.

Financial conditions: None

EFG encourages its data providers to become members of the Europeana Network and potentially of the Association of European Film Archives & Cinematheques (ACE).