The Europeana Data Model (EDM) was designed to replace the Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE). EDM will gradually make Europeana fit within a networked data environment. It is a much more flexible and precise model than ESE, and offers the opportunity to attach every statement to the specific resource it applies to, and to reflect some basic form of data provenance. The main EDM requirements include:
distinguishing between a provided item (painting, book) and its digital representations
distinguishing between an item and the metadata record describing it
allowing the ingestion of multiple records for the same item, which may contain contradictory statements about it
As a consequence of EDM having to meet these requirements, EDMdata has a level of complexity above that which Europeana currently maintains. This level of complexity is comparable to what can be found in the data of many Europeana providers, and thus, it enables better exploitation of that data. Note also that, as much as possible, EDM re-uses elements coming from already-established vocabularies, such as Dublin Core, OAI-ORE, SKOS and CIDOC-CRM, thus lowering the cost of its creation and adoption.