STERNA: SemanticWeb-basedThematic European Reference Network Application

STERNA has theobjective of supportingtheaim of the European Digital Librarybypionerringtheintegration of semanticallyenricheddigitalresourcesinthefield of naturalsciences and history.

STERNA (SemanticWeb-basedThematic European Reference Network Application) is a Best Practice Network project supportingtheobjectives of the European Digital Librarybypioneeringtheintegration of semanticallyenricheddigitalresourcesinthefield of naturalsciences and history. The networkcomprises of 12 multi-mediacontentprovidersfrom 9 European countries. Much of thecontentbelongstothethematicfield of biodiversity and is thuswellsuitedfordifferentusagescenarios, ranging frompreservationtoresearch, education and broadcasting. Several of theinstitutionsalsohaveconsiderabletechnical and methodologicalexpertisewithdigitisedresources. The approach is basedon "referencestructures", a pragmaticyetprincipledapproachtousingsemantic web techniquesforconnectingheterogeneousdatafromdifferentcontentproviders, whileleaving local organisational and dataprocessingenvironmentsintact.