Heritage Malta Officially Certified As The National Aggregator For Malta’s Cultural Heritage

Press release│ 17 April 2025

Heritage Malta has been officially certified as the 44^th Europeana Aggregator and the National Aggregator for Malta’s Cultural Heritage. This marks a major milestone both for Heritage Malta and the Maltese Islands, as our digitised cultural heritage data is now being published directly on Europeana – an online platform that provides the general public, including cultural heritage enthusiasts, professionals, teachers, and researchers, with access to Europe’s digital cultural heritage. 

The news was announced following a meeting earlier this month of the Europeana Aggregators Forum, where Anthony Cassar, Head of Heritage Malta’s Technology and Experience Development Unit, delivered a presentation as the agency’s formal application. The presentation was followed by a vote which confirmed Heritage Malta’s status as the national aggregator. Although the Government of Malta tasked the agency with this role in 2022, the official certification gives Heritage Malta formal and meaningful recognition at a European level. 

The cultural heritage data presented on the Europeana website is provided by thousands of European institutions, such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. There are currently more than 60 million objects listed on the website. The platform works through aggregators, like Heritage Malta, which act as technical mediators for other institutions within each country to help them share their cultural heritage collections.  

In Heritage Malta’s case, the first step was to connect its recently set up Collections Management System (CMS), where the national collection is being catalogued, with Europeana, ensuring that collection data, images and metadata align with the technical standards set by the platform. The first collections shared to the platform comprise nearly 1,000 artefacts from the Malta Maritime Museum and Gozo Museum of Archaeology. The artefacts may be viewed here: https://www.europeana.eu/en/collections/organisation/3606-heritage-malta  

Each artefact comprises a catalogue description and a high-resolution image, produced by Heritage Malta’s curators and its Digitisation Unit. This data can be accessed by anyone using the Europeana portal and will continue to be expanded along the years. This will create greater visibility for Heritage Malta and for Malta’s cultural heritage in general.  

Commenting on this achievement, Noel Zammit, Heritage Malta’s Chief Executive Officer, said that this milestone marks the realisation of a vision set in motion six years ago with the creation of the Digitisation Unit. “What started as an ambitious dream is now placing Malta firmly on the digital heritage map, with Heritage Malta leading the way,” Mr Zammit said. 

Anthony Cassar remarked that this achievement is the result of years of hard work, which included the setting up of a Collections Management System aligned with international metadata standards, as well as the structuring of the Digitisation Unit’s infrastructure to integrate directly with Europeana. “Thanks to the hard work of all those concerned, our CMS now connects with Europeana’s aggregation system via APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), enabling automated publishing once curators approve entries,” stated Mr Cassar.