Heidrun

Owned by Tom Johnson (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 29, 2016 by Mark Breedlove (Unlicensed)Version comment
1 min read

Heiðrún (a.k.a. Heidrun, pronounced [roughly] hey-droon) is DPLA's new metadata aggregation system, which we use to harvest metadata from Hubs, map it to the DPLA Metadata Application Profile, enrich it to clean up and add value, and to index it for use in the DPLA Platform API. Heiðrún is implemented as a Ruby on Rails application that builds on Krikri, a Ruby gem for metadata harvesting, mapping, and enrichment. Heiðrún and Krikri are both released as open source software under the MIT License.

About the name

Heiðrún is named after the Norse mythical goat that eats the leaves and buds off the tree Læraðr and produces mead. In our view, the metadata from our DPLA Hubs are the foliage, and the mead is the enriched RDF graphs that we produce for everyone to enjoy as Linked Data. A Kri-Kri is a species of feral goat from Crete.

Why goats? They are naturally curious, browsing animals that will try to consume almost anything.

More information


Lorenz Frølich, "Heiðrún" (Den ældre Eddas Gudesange)