Are you talking to me? Researching a Scenario for Linking Objects and Publications

in the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH), Brussels.

Ellen Van Keer [e.vankeer@kmkg-mrah.be] & Wouter Claes [w.claes@kmkg-mrah.be]

.

First Findings

m]

{past} Separate Systems with Linked Content

{future} Linked Datasets in the

Global Knowledge Space!

Museum Catalog Library Catalog

PLUS SINGLE POINT OF ENTRY

M+ is already used by the curators. SPECIFICITY

Bibliography can be cited to the page.

MODULARITY Document records can be

appended to multiple object records in the collections module, and vice versa.

Works bi-directionally. CONNECTIVITY

Handles hyperlinks (but in multimedia module).

Exports LIDO XML over OAI-PMH. Assigns permalinks to all objects (on Carmentis).

MINS

Lacks basic bibliographic fields and functionalities (.e.g. authority control).

Input entirely manual. ACTIONS

Define baseline for bibliographic data (e.g. aut-yr)

Specify required fields and functionalities in M+/Carmentis

Analyse options for automated import and export from and to Aleph/LIMO

Ob

jec

t

Aleph [MARC] Libisnet OPAC Unicat [MARC XML]

New Discovery Tool “LIMO”

PLUS STATE OF THE ART

Next-generation OPAC with advanced user services.

FACETED SINGLE SEARCH Single point of access to any

type of resource harvested and indexed in the system.

Dynamic clustering of search results in facets.

SERVER SIDE ENRICHMENT Links related records in the

system and external datasets in the index.

PERSISTENCE Generates a “permalink” for

each bibliographic record (but this is really a query now).

MINS

Library catalog vs. scholarly bibliography

Maximization of recall over precision in search results

ACTIONS

Specify need-to-have and want-to-have functionalities in Aleph/LIMO (e.g. cool URI, previews…)

Analyse options for automated export / harvesting from and to M+

Citations = p., n°, Pl., fig,…

= object-specific

enter manually

in museum catalog

adds content

References = publisher, edition,…

= document-specific

already existing

in library catalog

adds services

New “Literature” Module

Workflow on Library Side Workflow on Museum Side

As a result of recent digitization efforts, the RMAH has established a solid information management infrastructure. • Objects from its collections are catalogued in MuseumPlus

(Zetcom), published on Carmentis, the online collections website, and harvested through Europeana, the European portal for cultural heritage.

• Documents in the museum’s library are catalogued in Aleph (Libis), published on the OPAC (Libisnet) and aggregated e.g. to Unicat, the Belgian union catalog.

In the current framework both datasets and systems are totally independent. However, the materials they contain overlap not only on a general subject level but also on individual item level, given the museum’s objects are the special focus of the library’s collections. Moreover, object bibliography is a core aspect of museum research, but this information is not managed through either system today.

The project “Bridging Knowledge Collections” aims to develop an integrated information environment, linking cited museum objects to citing library documents, as well as vice versa, and giving access to metadata and content for both. As the underlying systems are compliant with international standards of interoperability and meet the requirements for aggregation, the challenge is not the technical feasibility of a cross-collection implementation as such, but rather the effective achievement of the highest degree of data-integration possible in the local context. Besides offering integrated access to data and content from the museum and library system in a single online search interface, this project aims to establish an integrated workflow for capturing the bibliographic citation details of the museum objects – a requirement set by the curators. This double objective has resulted in a “best-of-breeds” approach.

Method

Further Possibilities

{present} Cross-domain

Linking?

The library and museum systems have complementary functionalities, which we aim to exploit by developing integrated workflows. In particular, we want to (re)use existing bibliographic data from the library system in the literature module in M+, and link back by adding the LIMO permalink. In this way, we not only avoid having to manually create double datasets in separate systems, but we also gain access from within the museum environment to the wide range of library functionalities offered by LIMO. Moreover, this approach allows us to focus our back-office efforts on creating new data and links within the museum system, notably by linking object records to citing document records in M+ and specifying the citation details. In addition, these links are devoid of linguistics and have a high degree of specificity, which will add to the precision of the results when we export these linked datasets back into LIMO as a single search environment.

EXPORT TO M+ • Core bibliographic data • LIMO permalink

INGEST IN LIMO • Bibliographic metadata • Digital content • Object records with Carmentis permalinks • Citing records with LIMO permalinks

IMPORT IN M+ Core bibliographic data LIMO permalink

INPUT IN M+ (Curators) • Links to object records in collection module • Citation details (in either module)

EXPORT TO LIMO • Object records with Carmentis permalinks • Links to citing records with LIMO permalinks

records internally related

Since we are using “permalinks” as identifiers for both the museum objects (Carmentis) and the related documents (LIMO), instead of internal database primary keys, we can significantly increase the return-on-investment of manually encoding object citations in M+, by linking to other data sources adding further content (e.g. Worldcat), and by making the information available for wider reuse by publishing it as linked data aggregations (e.g. OAI-ORE, SPAR ontologies, dcterms:isReferencedBy in EDM). This could not only enhance the “findability” and “impact" of both the museum objects and publications, but it would also contribute to an e-infrastructure for advanced data-mining and cross-referencing of primary objects - rather than documents - in scholarly literature, which adds an important new dimension to citation and network analysis , relevant for all disciplines involved with the scholarly study and reception of cultural heritage.

Data-integration is a general challenge in the GLAM community, where all sectors have developed proper metadata schema’s for different types of standards (e.g. Spectrum vs. MARC; AAT vs. LCSH), which has segregated semantically related data into silos. Semantic interoperability relies on harmonized thesauri (e.g. ISO 25964). Data exchange standards (e.g. SRU, OAI) support syntactic interoperability between systems. Particularly adequate are new tools that “harvest and index” because they offer advanced functionalities such as content enrichment of internal and external datasets. However, this effect is only achieved at the output side, online, and the links will primarily rely on vocabulary, as record links and citation details have to be specified at the input side. Hence, this project implements two complementary new tools: i) at the front-end, the library discovery service LIMO, and ii) at the back-end, the literature module in the museum system.

object record in collections module with link to document in literature module

document record in literature module with link to object in collections module

record with permalink

Bib

liog

ra

ph

y

record with external links

document record with link to full reference in online library catalog

Carmentis Europeana [LIDO XML] M+ [Spectrum]

Problem

PUBLISH ON CARMENTIS • Objects with core citations • Links to full references in LIMO

INPUT IN ALEPH (Librarians) • Bibliographic data • (links to) full-text documents

Objective

PUBLISH ON LIMO • Documents (metadata + content) • Related objects with links to Carmentis