Building an API is not enough! Investigating Reuse of Cultural Heritage Data

The Europeana cultural heritage archive has a wealth of digital content that can be used for a variety of purposes, both by researchers and practitioners in the community. Vicky Garnett and Jennifer Edmond chart the progression of research into how this content is being used and accessed and what technical requirements would improve the digital archive’s development. For example, is an API the answer? How big a part do web-services actually play in their overall research? One of the most common problems participants have reported encountering is the quality of the metadata in the content they are accessing. If the metadata can’t be relied on, neither can the results.