Europeana publishes White Paper: Knowledge = Information In Context

In Knowledge= Information in Context Professor Stefan Gradmann,looks at the key role linked data will play in Europeana’s development and in helping Europe’s citizens make connections between existing knowledge to achieve new cultural and scientific advances.

Linked data gives machines the ability to make associations and put search terms into context. Using an an example from the experimental Thought Lab Prof. Stefan Gradmann shows how a search for ‘Paris’ intuitively leads to connected concepts like items in the Louvre, paintings portraying people named Paris, to topics like the ‘myth of Paris’ or the mythical Apple of Discord – and then on to the forbidden apple eaten by Adam and Eve.

“Strange as it may seem, this is the way lots of original artwork is conceived: through mental operations based on shifts of meaning, connotation and personal association,” says Prof. Gradmann, an expert in semantic technology, a professor for Library and Information Science at Humboldt University in Berlin and someone heavily involved in the building of Europeana.

Prof. Gradmann places this advanced search technology at the heart of Europeana’s purpose. “One of Europeana’s main roles should be to help Europe’s citizens create a new era of knowledge from our shared culture and history.”

Knowledge = Information in Context is the first in a series of White Papers on Digital Heritage. planned by Europeana.