The Archives Portal Europe publishes the archival content provided by its different partners through a back-end called the dashboard. An option allows delivering the data also to Europeana by using the same dashboard or sharing it via our API.
Three levels of administrators exist in the dashboard: general system Administrator (Admin), Country Manager (CM), Institution Manager (IM).
The general system Administrator creates the Country Manager accounts within the dashboard when asked to do so by a country and manages the Country Manager accounts. She/he/they can take the lead on any account in case of problems.
The Country Manager (usually one per country), generally appointed by the national archives but not always, has specific access and rights in the dashboard, allowing her/him/them to:
The Institution Manager (only one per institution, but one Institution Manager can be in charge of several institutions) has specific access and rights in the dashboard, allowing her/him/them to:
The Archives Portal Europe offers two environments to the content providers: the Production and the Content Checker. Each environment consists of a front-end (the portal) and a back-end (the dashboard). They are strictly independent from each other.
The Production server dashboard https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/Dashboard is the web environment where you upload your data for the online public production version, available for the public and the search engines. All data that is uploaded and processed here is available via the official Production portal.
The Content Checker server dashboard https://contentchecker.archivesportaleurope.net/Dashboard is an almost exact duplicate of the production one, meant as a simulation environment for testing purposes only. All data that is uploaded and processed here is available via its front-end https://contentchecker.archivesportaleurope.net. This simulation or demo environment is emptied regularly. The date of this so called "maintenance day" is published on the homepage of the front-end in advance.
This Content Checker or demo environment allows you to experiment with the portal, to test the workflow of data upload and processing, so to check how your data will look like on the portal before publishing them "for real" in the Production environment. Needless to say that it is highly recommended to use the Content Checker dashboard before using the Production dashboard.
The dashboard includes all necessary functionalities for the Institution Managers to:
All source files submitted to the Archives Portal Europe should be in XML format and at least compliant with one of the following standards:
You can read all about the way in which the Archives Portal Europe has implemented these international archival standards in the Standards section.
It is highly recommended to use UTF-8 encoding when producing XML files.
The portal relies on different types of XML files: EAG files to describe the archival institutions, EAD files to describe the archival material, EAC-CPF files to describe the archives records creators. They are all based on the international archival standards. Europeana uses another type of XML file: EDM files. All these different types of files are handled within the dashboard via different processes and workflows.
The Country Manager takes care of the registration of archival institutions in her/his/their country within the archival landscape of the Archives Portal Europe and for providing dashboard accounts for these archival institutions. A list of Country Managers can be found in our "About us" section.
Providing dashboard accounts is done via email registration. Once you are appointed by your institution for the role of Institution Manager, your Country Manager will use the institution registration she/he/they took care of in the dashboard to send you an email containing your username (which is your email address), a password, a secret question and answer and a link to directly access the Dashboard. Please note, that you will get access to the Content Checker and to the Production environments through two different messages. The type of environment, i.e. Content Checker or Production, is always mentioned in the top right of the screen.
Once logged in, you can change your details via the option "Edit user information" in the top right of the screen. This includes changes to your name, secret question and answer and password (strongly recommended) and to your email address. If you forget your password, you can get a new one by clicking on the link mentioned in the login page and from then follow the instructions that you will receive via email. You can also change the language of the interface by using the dropdown list on the top right of the screen.
Your institution has a specific place in the Archival Landscape of your country, given by your Country Manager who manages it. This Archival Landscape is the entry point to the 3-layer structure - country, institution, archival content - of the portal. It is the first level of this hierarchical structure, on which the advanced search as well as the directory of institutions connected to the portal are based. So once you start using the dashboard and you log in into your Institution Manager account for the first time, the first thing you have to do is to provide information on your institution.
When you log in into your dashboard account for the first time you are asked to provide an EAG file, either by creating one or by uploading one. All information about the EAG standard can be found in our Standards section. The schema for creating an EAG file in XML format is available over here: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/schemas/eag/eag_2012.xsd.
If you already have an EAG file (either from your own environment, or created within the Data Preparation Tool), you can upload it in the dashboard. The dashboard will check if the file is valid and compliant, and in case some mandatory information is missing, you will be asked to provide it before saving the file.
In case you don't have an EAG file, you can create one in the dashboard via the EAG form. This form consists of 7 tabs, ordered as in the ISDIAH standard, on which the EAG standard is based: Identity, Contact, Access and services, Description, Control, Relations. The mandatory fields are all grouped on the first tab, and the name of your institution is pre-filled based on the name used in the Archival Landscape by your Country Manager. For a complete description and explanation of all the elements and options of an EAG file, please see the EAG guide and EAG Tag Library.
Within the EAG creation form, next to the name of your institution, which is already pre-filled, only five fields are mandatory:
Specific attention should be given to the identifier of your institution. If you have an ISIL code please use it as identifier. If you don't have an ISIL code and can't obtain one, but you have a unique identifier that is ISO 15511 compliant and starts with a two-letter country code according to ISO 3166), you can use that also. If you don't have an identifier at all, then an internal identifier is automatically generated by the dashboard.
According to the above, an identifier should ideally consist of two characters for the country code, a hyphen and up to 11 alphanumeric characters. For instance:
The mandatory information filled in the first tab is automatically copied to the corresponding next tabs, for instance: the name of the institution is copied to the Identity tab and the opening hours information is copied to the Access and service tab. In these tabs you can add extra information related to the mandatory information.
If your institution runs several repositories, for instance the headquarters and various branches, you can add them one after the other by clicking on the Add new repository button. You then have to fill-in the same information as for the main repository. Each repository is then managed in its specific tab, and the display in the directory shows all of them.
Once you have uploaded an EAG file or created one using the EAG creation form and successfully saved that, you get more options available in your Institution Manager account, like one to download your EAG file. Other options you have now available related to managing your institution are:
Since May 2016 the Archives Portal Europe has an API (Application Programming Interface), which means that next to publishing your data via the general Archives Portal Europe interface, you can now also decide to publish your data as "open data" under a CC0 license to be used by anyone who wants to build a nice app using the Archives Portal Europe API. More information on this API service can be found in the according subpage of our Tools section.
Just like for forwarding data from the Archives Portal Europe to Europeana - each content provider has the possibility to "enable" the use of her/his/their data via the API in the dashboard by the function Manage open data for API. By check marking the option Enable open data, all data which you or your institution already has published via the Archives Portal Europe as well as all data which you or your institution will ingest in the Archives Portal Europe in the future will be made available as "open data" via the Archives Portal Europe's API. So basically this is an action you only have to perform once, either when your institution starts using the Archives Portal Europe and has a strong wish to participate in the "open data" initiative, or when your institution has been using the Archives Portal Europe for a while and wants to start publishing its data as "open data" at some point in time.
Because this is just a simple action, but with huge (strategic) consequences, an "Are you sure?"-dialogue screen will appear after you have check marked the Enable open data-toggle and clicked on the Submit button.
Of course it is always possible to withdraw data from being used via the API, f.i. in case - despite the "Are you sure?"-dialogue screen - you have enabled the option by accident, or in case your institution at some point in time decides for whatever reason to no longer publish its data as "open data" anymore. In that case check marking the Disable open data option will do and of course then again the "Are you sure?"-dialogue screen will appear before this action will actually take place. After using the Disable open data option, all data your institution already has published via the Archives Portal Europe as well as all data which it will publish via the portal in the future will no longer be available for the API anymore. So this also is an action you only have to perform once.
After activating the Enable open data- and Disable open data-options, the Archives Portal Europe's system puts a "flag" to either use or not use the API in its database for each finding aid and each component of it. Because this can take a while (f.i. for the Nationaal Archief's dataset of 6,767 finding aids, having 3,358,957 descriptive units, this took about 2 hours) a warning message might appear in case you try the enabling and disabling options (or vice-versa) shortly after each other.
A frequently asked question is: what are the consequences of enabling the API in terms of rights on content? Well, if you enable the API you only assign the CC0 license to your metadata, so to all finding aids, holding guides and source guides in EAD/XML format you make available via the Archives Portal Europe as well as to all archives records creators information in EAC-CPF format you have up there. So this does not apply to digital objects (scans) you might have linked to from all these files. All rights information regarding digital objects as available within your metadata files will be forwarded unaltered via the API services. So when you consider opening up your content as ‘open data’ via the Archives Portal Europe by enabling the API services in the dashboard, you have to check whether you own the rights on all metadata files you want to publish via the portal, so are allowed to assign the CC0 license to them. In case you own the rights on most of your metadata files, but not on all of them, then just make sure the latter ones don’t end up in Archives Portal Europe, until you have acquired these rights too or have received permission from the rights owner(s) to assign the CC0 license to those metadata files too.
In case you disable the usage of your data via the API again at some point and for whatever reason, please be aware that this only means that your data will - from that point onwards - not be shared via the API anymore. However, any data that was shared via the API and under the CC0 licence before that point will still be usable by those who got access to the data while being under the CC0 licence according to this completely open licensing model.
Though possible and easy to achieve, the change of the name of your institution should be handled very carefully because it is not only used in the EAG file, but in a lot of places in the Archives Portal Europe's framework. Besides, you should always report such changes to your Country Manager. Please note that the change of the name can be done only if no content is published in the portal nor converted to EDM. Therefore, you have to unpublish everything before and republish everything after the change, including producing the EDM files.
Users have the possibility to contact the archival institutions which are present in the portal via the "Contact this institution" form available in all content pages. By default, the Institution Manager receives these emails, but it is possible to redirect this feedback to the email address of another person, preferably someone who has thorough knowledge of the archival fonds and collections. This redirecting can be done by filling in the email address of the person who can take care of feedback emails in the option Set feedback e-mail address.
Please note that this field is mandatory: if left blank, the Institution Manager's email address will be used automatically again.
In order to publish information on archival material and its contexts gathered from different countries and institutions as consistent as possible, a common EAD profile has been defined, named apeEAD, as well as a common EAC-CPF profile, named apeEAC-CPF. All information relative to these profiles can be found in our Standards section and the profiles themselves can be found over here: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/schemas/ead/apeEAD.xsd and here: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/schemas/eac-cpf/apeEAC-CPF.xsd.
Note: there is an instruction video available which shows the basic workflow of uploading content to the Archives Portal Europe.
Unless already compliant to the APE profiles, the original local files have to be converted to these specific schemas before being published. The portal hosts different types of EAD files: finding aids, holding guides and source guides, with the finding aids having a hierarchical relation to the holdings and source guides respectively.
There are also relations possible between the EAC-CPF files and the finding aids published in the portal to allow the users to move from one to the other easily thanks to internal links displayed in the "Archival materials" facet of the EAC-CPF files display.
Only XML files can be uploaded to the Archives Portal Europe. These can be database exports or copies of existing EAD/XML or EAC-CPF/XML files. During the export, a mapping could be needed to a local XML format, to a target schema such as EAD2002 or directly to the EAD profile defined for the Archives Portal Europe (apeEAD). It is wise to collect all files in one place (e.g. one folder) which would be of help for submitting the data in one-go, f.i. when intending to use either an OAI-PMH repository or an FTP server to upload files or when wanting to upload several files combined in a zip-file via HTTP.
It is highly beneficial for the archives to think ahead of a bigger picture: the data ecosystem on the web. It is very likely that the content providers have to take care of the integrity of their own data on the internet as they increasingly tend to publish the data through various channels including their own website(s), third party websites (e.g. international, national, and regional portals, thematic portals etc.), and Linked Open Data publication. The issue of data integrity is that the content providers continuously update their source data, implying that the data available through different channels also needs to be updated and/or give feedback to the original data source. Some tips are given below to better take this into consideration:
In order to facilitate the work of the Institution Managers, the dashboard provides the possibility to establish specific profiles. These profiles, mandatory when using the OAI-PMH functionality, allow to automatically process the data once uploaded in the portal. It is particularly useful in the case of regular updates and additions of content in the portal. However, it is recommended to first test the portal data processing functionality manually in order to better see the different possibilities and check what is best for your data.
The profiles are used in the dashboard to indicate which actions are to be applied to the uploaded files. You can create as many profiles as needed, for instance you could apply different rules for files without images and files containing links to images. When using the OAI-PMH harvesting, using a profile is mandatory. Please note that you can also create a "manual" profile that will allow you to process the data yourself, step by step, after harvesting/uploading.
When you create a profile, you have to give the profile a name, and state the type of file (finding aid, holdings guide, source guide or EAC-CPF records) it is associated to and the forms will be adapted accordingly. Then you can indicate your choices in two different tabs: preferences for the Archives Portal Europe (tab Basic preferences displayed by default) and preferences for Europeana (visible as second tab called Europeana preferences).
The basic preferences indicate the default actions to apply to your files:
Note: in case you have enabled Take from file (<dao@xlink:role>) if existing, then the choices you make here will only be applied to files in case these don't have values specified yet; in other words: original values from the original files will not be overwritten, but transferred.
Note: the default choice here is the standard general local EAD to apeEAD conversion stylesheet, which is fine in 95% of the cases; however, it is possible that your local EAD files need some extra fine-tuning, which is not available in the standard stylesheet, in that case the Archives Portal Europe's technical team can provide a specific tweaked stylesheet for your institution and make that available here for you. The choice regarding the default XSL for conversion will only show in the profile if your institution uses its own conversion stylesheet next to the general one.
Note: these rights are taken over from the current copyright frameworks: Creative Commons and Rights Statements, which are also use by Europeana. Next to the licence or rights statement, you can also add the rights holder as well as a description of what the applied licence or rights statement means.
For Europeana, the EAD files have to be converted to another format (the Europeana Data Model, EDM), totally different from the EAD format, and then they will be published in another portal that has different re-use rules than the Archives Portal Europe. The preferences to indicate are therefore numerous and subdivided into general and specific settings.
As converting an EAD file to the EDM means "flattening" the description of the document, inheriting information from higher levels to lower levels in case they are missing there is already going on behind the scenes of the EDM conversion. The general options then let you influence some aspects with regard to identifiers and titles as appropriate to your data. The specific settings then make sure that the EDM version of your data includes all the information required by Europeana, such as the name of your institution, the type of digital object and the licence or rights statement applied to the digital material, the language of the material and the language of the description. For all of these, there is the option to specify that information shall be taken from the original data (rather than from the form) if existing.
Please note that for forwarding content to Europeana you will have to have signed the Europeana Data Exchange Agreement (DEA).
The dashboard allows three different protocols to upload the files: HTTP, FTP and OAI-PMH. HTPP and FTP are available by choosing Upload content in the main menu, OAI-PMH by choosing Create automated harvesting function.
A short overview of the pros and cons of each method:
| HTTP | FTP | OAI-PMH | |
| Pros | No local installation needed, data delivery can be done from a local machine | Data delivery can be managed/done remotely via a dedicated FTP server (without having data on a local machine) | Data delivery can be fully automated via a dedicated OAI-PMH server |
| Great familiarity with the technology | Data can be synchronised easily with local database system | ||
| Data can be offered to other service providers simultaneously | |||
| De-facto standard for data exchange within cultural heritage sector | |||
| Cons | Data delivery is always manual | Server has to be deployed locally | Server has to be deployed locally |
| Data delivery is always manual | Set-up is not always simple |
Via the dashboard option Upload content you access the dialogue screen for HTTP or FTP upload. The default value is HTTP, which enables you to select one XML file or a zip-file containing more than one XML file. Before actually uploading the file(s), you can choose a profile to let the system apply specific actions after uploading.
Your file has to be a valid XML file or a zip file containing valid XML files. If the files are not valid, the dashboard will reject them with a notification. The size limit of the file (one XML file or one zip-file) is 200 MB and there can be no more than 1,000 files XML within a zip-file.
In case you don't select a profile the dashboard detects the type and status of your files automatically and asks you to make some choices. In case you have selected a profile, the - predefined - choices will be taken care of and you can proceed to the Content manager screen to check the results of the uploading and processing.
These are the checks that the Dashboard can make and the errors it can detect:
Note: all these manual actions can be avoided by using a profile in which you have predefined all these actions; so manual processing of your files is a bit tedious, but when starting to contribute content to the Archives Portal Europe it's very useful to do this once, just to check the quality of your data.
For uploading data via FTP, the process is similar to the one with HTTP. When choosing the FTP option in the upload content menu, you have to fill in the address of your FTP server, give the username and the password, and connect to the FTP server. The profile to apply can be selected afterwards, when you select the files to be uploaded.
The use of OAI-PMH is highly recommended. For more information, please refer to the OAI-PMH website. You can also read the Best practices for OAI PMH Data Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata (a bit old, but the basis of the OAI-PMH did not change).
Once set up, everything can be automated, from the harvest to the publication of data in the portal and delivery to Europeana.
Note: there is an instruction video available on how to configure OAI-PMH harvesting in your Archives Portal Europe dashboard account.
There are many open source OAI-PMH tools (for more details see: http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/tools/tools.php). When implementing an OAI-PMH repository, it is recommended to test it before submitting data to the Archives Portal Europe. There are several (online) testing tools that can also be used for this purpose, such as e.g. the OAI-PMH Validator & Data extractor Tool).
Some important point have to be checked to ensure a correct harvesting process and take advantage of all its possibilities:
In the dashboard, you act as harvester from your own repository. The advantage is that you fully control the harvesting process. The first step is to enter the base URL of your OAI repository to allow the dashboard to check it.
After clicking on the Ok button, the dashboard either recognises the OAI-PMH repository and then continues with the next step, or indicates that it can't recognise the URL given as one of an OAI-PMH repository. In the latter case, you have to check at your end whether you made a typo in the base URL or whether the OAI-PMH repository might be offline. The second step consists of specifying the parameters for the harvest, based on the options the dashboard has gathered from what your OAI-PMH repository offers:
When the harvest is terminated and successful, the files are available in the Content Manager and, depending on the profile chosen, ready to be further processed, or already converted, published, delivered to Europeana and so on. In parallel, you receive an automatic email notification from the dashboard informing you of the result of the harvest: if the harvest succeeded or not, how many files could be harvested, and a short text describing the problem, if any. You can then check in the portal and in the dashboard how your data have been handled and displayed and get details on the errors.
The Dashboard option Create automatic harvest function stores the basic information on all harvesting jobs, so can be used as a harvesting log file. All performed harvests are presented in a table summarising for each of them the parameters chosen, the harvest result, the date of the harvest and the date of the next harvest. Each table entry allows edition of the harvest job and offers a download of a more detailed log file (by clicking on the texts in the errors column).
After a harvest has been concluded you have four possible results: succeed, succeed with warnings, succeed with errors and failed, indicated with a color code: green, orange and red.When the harvest is terminated and successful, the files are available in the Content Manager and, depending on the profile chosen, ready to be further processed, or already converted, published, delivered to Europeana and so on. In parallel, you receive an automatic email notification from the Dashboard informing you of the result of the harvest: if the harvest succeeded or not, how many files could be harvested, and a short text describing the problem, if any. You can then check in the Portal and in the Dashboard how your data have been handled and displayed and get details on the errors.
Except for the first result possibility (succeed), you can download files to check what happens.
Some examples of error messages:
PARSE ERROR: [com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxLazyException] Undeclared general entity "ugrave" at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [12296,271] Please download the OAI-PMH response from the Dashboard for analysis
If you then check the XML file at the row 12,296, you see the entity "ù" (for "ù" in html) instead of the entity "ù".
Note that the error messages only comment on the first error encountered, but that doesn't mean that the same error is not encountered later on in a file or in a harvesting job.
The Archives Portal Europe technical team has developed a standalone OAI Harvester tool allowing to harvest your data as you would in the dashboard, using the same parameters etc. It's useful for these cases:
The Content manger screen is the heart of the dashboard. This screen allows you to check the status of all your content as uploaded/harvested to the Archives Portal Europe and manage it any further if needed. You can enter this screen via the link Content manager in the Dashboard. The Content manager screen is divided in three parts:
1. The upper part of the screen (indicated as 1) groups all filtering and searching facilities.
The filtering on Finding aid, Holdings guide, Source guide and EAC-CPF corresponds with the 'view' on this type of content in the lower part of the screen (indicated as 3); in case Finding aid is selected in part 1, part 3 will show all finding aids uploaded and processed, in case Holding guide is selected in part 1, part 3 will show all holding guides, etc.
The searching - in the content as shown in part 3 - can be done by making a selection of the options offered and then clicking on the Search button. For example: in case you only check Fatal error in the options of Validated and click on the Search button, you will only see the files with a validation error (Fatal error) in part 3 below.
Note that if you move from one content view to another view (for instance from the Finding aid view to the EAC-CPF view), the filters remain active and might mislead you, therefore it’s necessary to reset them.
2. The middle part of the screen (indicated as "2" in the screenshot above) offers a possibility to perform batch actions on either all files as shown in the lower part of the screen, or on a selection of those files.
You have several possibilities to select files in the lower part of the screen:
The batch actions that can be performed on either all files or a selection of files are shown in the screenshot here.
3. The lower part of the screen (indicated as "3" in the screenshot above) shows all files uploaded/harvested as a row in a table, indicating their identifier, their title, the date on which they last entered the dashboard and a summary of their processing status. The processing steps are to be seen from the left to the right: starting with the conversion step and ending with delivery done to Europeana step. The main steps can be processed independently - first convert, then validate, then publish the file etc. - or in combination (i.e. convert, validate, publish) or as part of a batch process. The actions available for each file are indicated in the last column. The dropdown menu of that column displays only the possible actions depending on the steps already achieved and the status of the file.
Note: for all actions goes: the files are put into a queue; depending on how many data are being processed, the queue can be longer or shorter; the status of the queue is indicated in the middle of the Content manager screen, above the batch options: number of your files in the queue, queue size and number of files before yours; when a file is the queue (which is indicated in grey in the action column), the only possible action is to remove it from the queue.
In case a file in the lower part of the screen shows an error (indicated as "4" in the main screenshot above), you can get a more detailed error message by activating the action Show error message in the last column.
Via the blue bar in the middle of the Content manager screen you have access to a few more options:
It is possible to download your files from the Archives Portal Europe, but of course those will be in the specific Archives Portal Europe formats (apeEAD and apeEAC-CPF), so not in your original (source) format.
For downloading just one file, useful in case you want to check it when an error has occurred, the dashboard offers the download action in the dropdown list of the last column of the table in the lower part of the Content manager.
Downloading more than one file at the same time, or all files at the same time, is not possible via the dashboard, however, the Archives Portal Europe technical team offers Webdav functionality for that. You can use this in connection with a WebDAV application, e.g. CyberDuck. Select WebDAV (HTTPS) as the method and specify the following URL to connect to the server:
You will also be asked to enter login information, this has to be the same as the the login details you use for logging into the Archives Portal Europe's dashboard.
Once you have access, you will see that the files are hierarchically organised in folders by institutions and type of files. You can navigate these folders like you would on your local computer and you can select single files or folders for download. Depending on your status (Country Manager or Institution Manager) you have different right access: to the files of all institutions in a country or - within a country - only to the files of your institution(s). Within your institution you can click on the folder with the files you want to access. For each institution, the files are organised by type of files: SG (Source Guides), EAG (EAG2012 files), EUROPEANA (EDM files), EAC-CPF (apeEAC-CPF records), HG (Holding Guides) and FA (Finding Aids).
Next to the functionalities that are necessary for the common workflow, the Archives Portal Europe's dashboard also offers some extra - optional - ones.
An introduction to Encoded Archival Context - Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (EAC-CPF) and the use of it in the Archives Portal Europe can be found in the apeEAC-CPF of our Tools section and the schema for the apeEAC-CPF subset is available over here: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/schemas/eac-cpf/apeEAC-CPF.xsd.
Content providers, who don't have EAC-CPF files or can't export these kind of files from their own systems, can create EAC-CPF files in the dashboard using a form. The form does not, however, cover all possible elements of apeEAC-CPF, but allows entering the key information about an entity, i.e. a person, a family, or an organisation that have created, worked with or maintained archival records. The created files are then available in the content manager, like the other files, but in the EAC-CPF view of the Content manager screen.
When opened, the form is displayed using the full width of your screen. First you have to select the type of entity that you want to describe, before you can fill in the different tabs adapted to each entity type in a second step.
Like with all other data, the quality of the search for names in the portal, which builds on these EAC-CPF files, and the facets to refine the search depend on the quality of the data available in the EAC-CPF file; the more information you add, the more possibilities there will be for the search.
The display of EAC-CPF files in the Archives Portal Europe facilitates links to original websites and authority files systems, but also to related archival material and related entities as available in the portal itself.
Topics have been created at admin level in the dashboard, aligned with the UNESCO Thesaururs and the UK Archival Thesaurus (UKAT).
The topics can be accessed via the gallery on the homepage of the portal, and are also available in the Explore section. They are furthermore used as facets in the search results. While the gallery on the homepage only shows a selection of the topics, the Explore section gives access to all individual topics including their subtopics, if existing. Here users can learn more about what documents each topic might include, which countries have contributed content to a topic so far and how they themselves can help in improving and extending a topic. From the individual topic pages, users can also initiate a search for all documents linked to this selected topic at the moment.
There are two ways to activate the topics in Archives Portal Europe:
When you follow the link to the Manage topic mappings functionality in the dashboard, you will get access to topic mappings that you have already created. You can order the columns, modify or delete an existing topic or create new topic mappings. The "Topic description" contains the original (English) term that is displayed in the portal as the default value in case no translations into other languages for the user interface exist. The "keyword for controlaccess" column is the place to map your own terms with the topics of the portal. In the example here, the topic "Slavery" is mapped to the term "Esclavage", a term that is used in French finding aids. The "source guide" column is automatically filled in when a source guide is linked to a topic.
When creating a new topic mapping, you have two dropdown lists at the top:
Alternatively to connecting to a source guide, you can use the text field to enter the terms related to the topic that can be found in your finding aids. These terms are case insensitive, i.e. "Taxation" or "taxation" will be indexed equally. The limitation of characters is set to 1,000. It allows entering a lot of synonyms in the case of very general topics that correspond to numerous specific terms.
To help you map the topics with your existing index entries or thesauri, the Data Preparation Tool allows you to list all <subject> elements of all your files in one go, and see which are the most relevant and important ones in order to decided which could be mapped to the existing list of topics of the portal.
In case you want to connect finding aids to a topic which does not exist in the dashboard yet, please contact your Country Manager or the APEF team to start the conversation of extending the central list of topics.
The dashboard also offers the possibility to create basic holdings and source guides. A holdings guide offers high level descriptions of all fonds of an archival institution and links to the detailed finding aids, when these are available. It is the second layer of the three-layer structure of the content of the portal: institutions / holdings guides / finding aids. If an institution doesn't have any finding aids, creating a holdings guide can be a way to nonetheless describe its fonds and its filing plan and thus still publish basic information on the archival material it holds via Archives Portal Europe. A source guide is based on the same principle as the holdings guide, but preferably contains high level descriptions of all fonds of an archival institution on a particular theme or topic. Thus the source guide, once created within the dashboard or uploaded to it, allows selecting and grouping finding aids on certain themes/topics, preferably those of the portal as described in the previous section.
Note: you can find an instruction video on how to create holdings guides (and source guides) on our Vimeo channel (requires login).
You can access the dashboard functionality for creating a holdings guide via the link Creation of a holdings guide in the holdings guide view of the Content manager screen. Equally, you can find the link Creation of a source guide in the source guide view of the Content manager screen. Creating a holdings or source guide is done in the same two steps: first you create the structure of the file, then you link the finding aids to this structure.
The link Creation of a holdings guide in the holdings guide view of the Content Manager screen opens a dialogue screen in which you have to provide a minimum set of information for the holdings guide: an identifier, a title and a description (the latter is not mandatory). This functionality produces a holdings guide in EAD/XML format. Note that the <eadid/> of the file will be provided automatically by the dashboard.
After having filled and saved this form, you end up in a new screen where you can "build" the structure of your holdings guide by creating extra levels and sub-levels. The same form is used for each level and after filling in and saving these forms, the result will be displayed for you to check. Using the Edit, Add and Delete options in the grey box in this screen, you can add more levels and sub-levels, edit and/or delete them.
Note: this holdings guide creation functionality is a one-shot: you can't modify its structure or descriptions within the dashboard after having saved it via the option Quit. After that the only possibility for future changes (except linking finding aids) is to download the holdings guide, adapt it locally in an XML editor and then upload it again.
Once you have created a holdings guide, you have to switch to the finding aid view of the Content manager in order to link finding aids to the holdings guide. You have to select the finding aids for each holding guide level, level by level and then choose "Add finding aids to holdings guide or source guide" either as a batch option or separately for individual finding aids in the dropdown list of actions. You can use the facilities of the Content manager to order your files by title or by identifier, if this is an order you'd like to replicate in your holdings guide, which will then make this second step easier to process.
The selected finding aids will then be listed and you are asked to choose from the following options for linking them to your holdings guide:
Note that - again - this is a one-shot: once linked you can't unlink a finding aid from a holdings guide; but you can add new finding aids once uploaded in the dashboard later on, provided your structure already includes all necessary levels and sub-levels.
You can check the result in the Content manager: the linked finding aids are indicated in the holdings guide column with the corresponding number (the number 1, for being linked to one, or higher, for example if a finding aid is linked also to one or more source guide(s)).
Now all you have to do is to switch back to the holdings guide view of the Content manager and "publish" the holdings guide which you have created and linked finding aids to. Then you can check the result in the portal: when you search for your institution, the "Archival materials" section will not only list your finding aids, but also your newly created holdings guide. Users can then browse through the holdings guide and get to your linked finding aids from there.
For Archives Portal Europe's conversion to the Europeana Data Model (EDM) see more details on the according sub-page in the Standards section.
Please select amongst the relevant tips we can help with. If you still have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us, and we will be in touch as soon as possible.
Starting your search here will include all content available in Archives Portal Europe. Simply enter your keyword(s) and hit the search button. Wrap fixed expressions in quotation marks, e.g. “French Revolution”. Check the box to “Search each term separately” in case you are looking for documents containing at least one word, but not necessarily all keywords; this will also allow you to search for the same term in multiple languages at the same time (e.g. “French Revolution” “Révolution Française”). You can also use wildcards - find more about Research Tools here. If you would like to use more specific settings, try our Advanced search
The additional advanced search options give you the possibility to focus your search in:
When searching with multiple terms at the same time, wrap fixed expressions in quotation marks (e.g. "French Revolution"), or check the box "Search each term separately" in case you are looking for either one term of the other. This will also allow you to search for the same term in multiple languages (e.g. "French Revolution" "Révolution française"). You can also choose one of the suggestions matching your search term once you start typing.
This will only show results that include documents that have been digitised and are available online
Use this option to search only one or more keywords, rather than all of them
Select where your search terms should appear specifically inside the archival description:
You can filter results by selecting where your search terms appears specifically inside the archival description:
You can filter results by selecting where your search terms appears specifically inside the description of the archive:
Please note that this filter will only include institutions, for which a type has been provided as part of their descriptions:
Enter a start and/or end date in the format DD-MM-YYYY, i.e. 01-01-1900 for 1 January 1900. This will allow you to focus your search on a specific period of time. You can use the calendar function or type directly in the text field. The checkbox "Exact date search" concentrates the search on one specific date.
Check "View in context" to view the results in the hierarchical structure of archives.
For more details see Research Tools
Please sign in to save your searches.
A holdings guide is an overview of the collections and fonds of one archival institution.
A finding aid is a structured description of archival materials per collection or fonds up to item level.
You can filter results by selecting one or more countries of interest. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by one or more holding archival institutions. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can select to view results from a specific Finding Aid, i.e., a structured description of archival materials per collection or fonds up to item level. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter by type of descriptive document:
You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by selecting "Fonds description" for a general overview or "Other descriptions" for item level. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter
selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results
matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by selecting only those containing digital objects, i.e. the link to the digitised version of the archival material you are looking for. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by type of digital object you are interested in:
You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your filter selection will appear above. Click "Clear filters" to see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results based on the date of creation of the archival material (which may differ from the time period you are interested in - e.g., philosophers from the Enlightenment period reflecting on classic thinkers)
Please note that not all documents contain a machine-readable date. More information here
You can filter results based on the date of creation of the archival material (which may differ from the time period you are interested in - e.g., philosophers from the Enlightenment period reflecting on classic thinkers). This filter will only include materials with "Full dates", i.e. those that include date information available for date-based searches. You can either search for a specific date of interest or focus step by step on the time span of a century, decade, year or month. When searching for a specific date, enter the date in the format DD-MM-YYYY, i.e. 01/01/1900 for 1 January 1900, via the calendar function or by typing directly in the text field.
This filter concentrates on the earliest dates mentioned in the materials.
You can filter results based on the date of creation of the archival material (which may differ from the time period you are interested in - e.g., philosophers from the Enlightenment period reflecting on classic thinkers). This filter will only include materials with "Full dates", i.e. those that include date information available for date-based searches. You can either search for a specific date of interest or focus step by step on the time span of a century, decade, year or month. When searching for a specific date, enter the date in the format DD-MM-YYYY, i.e. 01/01/1900 for 1 January 1900, via the calendar function or by typing directly in the text field.
This filter concentrates on the latest dates mentioned in the materials.
You can filter results based on the language in which the material is written. Please note that this filter will only include materials where specific language information has been provided by the institution and is therefore in a machine-readable format. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your selection will then be displayed above the search results (see "Search filters"). Clicking "Clear filters" will remove your selection and you will see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by selecting one or more topics of interest. Please note that this filter will only include materials where the topic has been assigned and is therefore in a machine-readable format. Read how to assign a topic to documents on the Topics page. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your selection will then be displayed above the search results (see "Search filters"). Clicking "Clear filters" will remove your selection and you will see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by selecting where your search terms appears specifically inside the archival description:
You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your selection will then be displayed above the search results (see "Search filters"). Clicking "Clear filters" will remove your selection and you will see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results by type of entities:
You can filter results based on the language in which the material is written. Please note that this filter will only include materials where specific language information has been provided by the institution and is therefore in a machine-readable format. You can also combine this filter with other filters. Your selection will then be displayed above the search results (see "Search filters"). Clicking "Clear filters" will remove your selection and you will see all results matching your initial search request again.
You can filter results based on the type of holding institution. Please note that this filter will only include institutions, for which a type has been provided as part of their descriptions.
Write your message in your own language and use this drop-down menu to have your message translated into English or in the language of the institution for a swifter response. By checking this box and selecting a language you will send your original message along with the translated version
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holder as described in
the licence, and as long as you license your adaptations of the object under the same
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This object is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons - Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivates (BY-NC-ND) licence. You can copy and redistribute the object for non-commercial use only, as long as no alteration is made to the object and as long as you attribute the rights
holder as described in
the licence.
If you remix, transform or build upon the object, you may not distribute the modified material.
This object is in the public domain, but has been digitised as the outcome of a public-private partnership, where the terms of the contractual agreement limit commercial use for a certain period of time. You can copy, redistribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the object for non-commercial use only.
This object has been
identified as an Orphan Work in the country of first publication and in
line with the requirements of the national law implementing Directive
2012/28/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October
2012 on certain permitted uses of orphan works.
You are free to use this object in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. Please note that you are responsible for your own use, including the need to obtain other permissions e.g. with regard to publicity, privacy or moral rights.
This object is in the public domain, but is subject to known legal restrictions other than copyright which prevent its free re-use. Please contact the providing institution for more information.
This object is currently in copyright. Please contact the providing institution for more information and in order to acquire additional permissions for re-use.
The copyright status of this object has not been evaluated yet. Please contact the providing institution for more information.
You are free to use this object in any way that is permitted by the
copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. Please note that you are responsible for your own use, including the need to obtain other permissions e.g. with regard to publicity, privacy, or moral rights.
This object is currently in copyright and the rights holder(s) have allowed re-use for educational purposes only. You are free to use this object in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. Please note that you are responsible for your own use, including the need to obtain other permissions e.g. with regard to publicity, privacy or moral rights.
Please contact the providing institution for more information and in order to acquire additional permissions for any other uses.