Presentation given by (Stein) Runar Bergheim Asplan Viak Internet AS, Norway LoCloud Conference Sharing local cultural heritage online with LoCloud services Amersfoort, Netherlands 5 February 2016

1. On the Map
(Stein) Runar Bergheim (@runarbe)
Asplan Viak Internet AS

2. Who am I?
• I, (Stein) Runar Bergheim work for AVINET
A small but perfectly shaped Norwegian tech company
operating in Norway, Europe and the Middle East
• Been part of the community around Europeana since
2008
EuropeanaLocal, CARARE, PATHS - and presently LoCloud
• Feel privileged to be part of a project and community
with brilliant people bringing forward the accumulated
results of many Europeana projects

3. Just and ID, I thought…
• Identifiers: Numbers to find an item in a list, I thought
• Intelligent identifiers in the digital era: the product of deranged
minds, I still think
• Little did I know about the people, resources engagement and
community working eagerly to attach value-added information
to the records identified by these strings and numbers – before
I embarked on my journey with Europeana

4. Enrichment and data quality
Who What
When Where

5. Location is great
Fits «everything» together
Is language independent
The «perfect» way of integrating heritage
(but brings with it it’s own set of challenges)

6. Geography excellent
for exploration
I know what I am looking for and I
know it exists in there
I am interested in information that is
relevant to my location/place

7. Location of a single object

8. Search and exploration

9. Visualization of related objects

10. The 19th century
exploits of «Viking Danske»
Eivindvik
Svanøy
Askrova
Kalvåg
Måløy
Selje
Source:
«church books,
birth registry»

12. well, there’s a tiny problem!
Location is all but absent in most of the metadata
contributed to Europeana
May exist «by proxy»
 Geographical names
 Contextual location (focus of collection, location of institution etc)
But to exploit the potential – we need
coordinates

13. So how can we get
coordinates?
Automatic geocoding
 Non-trivial but perfectly doable task
 Based on what exist in our metadata…
 Named entity extraction / geographical names
 Street addresses
 Property gazetteer identifiers

14. Sounds (too) good…
What’s the catch?
 Can only find coordinates if metadata references locations
 Typically finds «intermediate» resolution locations, i.e. village,
city, municipality etc.
 False «hits» due to common names i.e. «Blue Mountains»
 Ambiguous hits – more than one hit per object
 Requires quality assurance

16. How to improve accuracy?
There are two options
A. Add locations to your metadata records manually
B. Simply don’t do it; wait (or hope) for someone else to do it for you
If you go for Option A
 Try to harness the knowledge and experience of individuals to place
your digital objects on the map
 It is urgent – the pyramids may not be forgotten so easily but pieces
of local history become extinct every day

18. That is too much work! Just
think about A, B, C … Z
It will certainly involve a lot of work and nobody says it is
easy.
But it is made a great deal easier with the proper tool
 And this is where LoCloud and this presentation comes in…
And you can always ask for help; «the crowd» is out there
 …and if the Norwegian-American emigrant crowd is anything to go by – they are
active and committed, occasionally bordering on requiring a restraining order.

19. Principle: Enrichment at or
near source
Collection
management
system
Aggregator Europeana

20. LoCloud’s approach
We’ve built a tool that allow you to add
detailed geolocations to any existing data

21. Allow me to explain
Upload your
data as tables
Enrich your
content using
the appliation
Download
data as tables,
SQL
statements or
RDF
Update your
original data
source
Any is a «big
word»

22. Only requirement is a
unique id, a descriptive
title is helpful

23. user
*****

24. List of data
sources
Top menu
List of items to
be geotagged Geotagging,
editing form
Search databases
User
management
Map, map tools
Search results

28. You can have
many data
sources and
control who
has access to
do what with
each source

29. Select, filter
and navigate
your
uploaded
data sources

30. You can add
points, lines
or polygons

31. Mainstream web
maps – but also
INSPIRE compliant
map services

32. Propose edits to
title or any other
attribute

33. Confidence is
stored
Map
resolution is
stored

34. Select from
available
names sources:
geonames,
LoCloud APIs,
National
gazetteers

35. Click to open
with same
extent

36. Download as
GeoJSON, KML,
RDF or CSV

37. Test in Google Earth

38. Where from here…?
• Visit: www.locloud.eu to learn about LoCloud
• A demo version of the tool is available to be tried out
at locloud.avinet.no/demo
• If you want a user account or an introduction, email
rb@avinet.no
• Tool available under supported and GPL license –
available for free on GitHub for «self-hosters»

39. Is it used?
• Yes, quite a lot
By ASPLAN VIAK AS – a Norwegian consulting engineering
company (owner of AVINET)
By NORPLAN AS – an international consulting partnership with
an emphasis on South-Asia, Middle-East and Sub-Saharan
Africa
By the Ministry of Tourism in the Sultanate of Oman
The first user and the one who provided the requirements and
specifications for the tool was the National Archives of Norway
– big thanks.

40. Adding geolocation to your data:
Is it worth the effort?
• You must assess for yourself
If your mission is isolated to preserving historical
records/information that are not in themselves geographical by
nature, then maybe not.
If your mission includes engaging the interest of your users and
help them explore your content, then we believe yes.
• Catalogs and databases are tools for people who
already know what they are looking for
• Maps are tools for explorers

41. …at the end
of the road
Through LoCloud, AVINET has enjoiyed the
experience of standing on the proverbial «shoulders
of giants»…
As we are approaching the end of our journey
together – a big thanks to all of you – and in
particular to Kate Fernie for managing our mostly
benign but somewhat unruly partnership.

42. Thank you for the attention
(assuming you paid any)
Stein Runar Bergheim
Director of Research & Development
Asplan Viak Internet AS