Dutch Collections for Europe

Dutch Collections for Europe is the national aggregator for cultural heritage from the Netherlands. It provides access to around 2.5 million digital objects from over 100 Dutch cultural heritage institutions. DC4EU brings the digital heritage collections of Dutch museums, archives and other heritage institutions together and from here, all heritage data is provided to Europeana. It was set up in 2011 as an aggregator: heritage institutions can link their collection to it, so that they can also connect to other national and international services and facilities. The management of the collections remains the responsibility of the institution itself. By bringing all this data together, new applications can be developed by, among others, science and the creative industry.

Since 2015 DC4EU is part of the Network Digital Heritage (NDE) which carries out the activities of the Dutch National Strategy for Digital Heritage.
The Network Digital Heritage was set up with the mission to develop a system of national facilities and services with all heritage institutions in the Netherlands to improve the visibility, usability and sustainability of digital heritage. In this way more social added value of our digital heritage is jointly created. The DC4EU is carried out by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.

In addition to data publication the DC4EU offers:

• Advice on best route to Europeana for Dutch participants,
• Advice on the Europeana workflow, documentation and requirements,
• Data analysis and feedback loop before sending data to Europeana,
• Data validation service,
• On-demand training.

Technical conditions for working with DC4EU:

• Metadata should preferrably be available through OAI-PMH in the EDM format following the Europeana guidelines for publication.

Limitations: None

Financial conditions: None