Global interoperability and linked data in libraries: ICCU international committment

Abstract

The digitization of cultural heritage issues even new challenges for accessing and sharing the content on the web. The Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of the Italian Libraries (ICCU), which is involved in the digitization of cultural heritage, participates in the European debate on open data to develop new approaches for the valorization of cultural heritage within some major European projects such as Europeana and Linked Heritage, and national initiatives as CulturaItalia, the Italian culture portal. This conference is organized in cooperation with the Linked Heritage project, funded through the ICT Policy Support Programme, and coordinated by ICCU. Linked Heritage involves 20 European countries and dozens of European cultural institutions in each sector (archives, libraries, museums). Its main objective is to provide 3 million data to Europeana; the first ones will be online in September 2012. In addition, the Linked Heritage partners are working on three areas considered crucial for the development of cultural content on the web: multilingualism with the aim to supply cultural institutions with a technology platform that facilitates the production of multilingual metadata that can be easily found in Europeana and in