Not seeing the forrest for the trees?

giuliana.defrancesco@beniculturali.itg.defrancesco@smb.spk-berlin.de

© BBalberto http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbalberto/4395993504/

Collection description and its potential

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fitzgabbro/5950841347/http://picasaweb.google.com/basiainlondon/CoventGardenBritishMuseum#5124951721253915522

Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, an international loan exhibition organized by the Walters Art Museum

Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum

Objects belong to groups

Collections are context

Collections have histories

Collections tell stories

Context IS what matters!

Collection-level description

Collection-level description

Describing the collection as a whole

• Common practice

• Disclosing implicit knowledge• Practical: “It is practical and economic to manage bulk

archaeological and natural science material at this level”• Aid to select and access to individual items: “The

story to be told is best done by considering the material together rather than as individual parts”.

Collection-level description

• Discovery• Search across collections• Management (part. collaborative)

• Collection development (eg planning acquisitions, shared collections etc)

• Support operations on the collections (machine-readable metadata and metasearch engines)

Collection description standards

Cross domain approach

EAD 1998, 2002

2000

2005-2006

2007

Collection description initiatives

MICHAEL: Mapping the digital cultural heritage of Europe

2004 - 2008

http://www.michael-culture.se http://www.michael-culture.fi http://www.michael-culture.cl.bas.bg http://www.michael-culture.pl http://www.michael-culture.fr

http://www.michael-culture.hu

http://www.michael-portal.de http://www.michael-culture.org.uk

http://www.michael-culture.kul.ee http://www.michael-culture.es

http://www.michael-culture.cz

http://www.michael-culture.nl http://www.michael-culture.gr

http://www.michael-culture.org.il

http://www.michael-culture.it

About 10.000 digital collections belonging to about 4000 cultural and scientific organisations across Europe and corresponding to millions of

objects

http://www.michael-culture.org

Collections coverage

Institution location

Institution typeInstitution type

Obstacles towards further evolution

After 2008 a bit of a slowing down…

• Lack of common practices and internationally agreed collections description rules

• Lack of effective connection between object-level and collection-level description

• Lack of unambiguous identification of collections

Researching for solutions

• Combination of the two levels (item- and collection-level description) to improve quality of search and discovery

• Development of a logic-based framework for classifying collection/item metadata relationships and achieve inferencing

• Semantic integration via CIDOC/CRM

Progress in sight!

International Standard Collection Identifier

• ISO FDIS 27330 Developed by ISO TC 46 Information and documentation, SC 9, Identification and description

• Unique international identification system for each collection, fond and series and parts of collections, fonds and series

• Intended for use by organisations managing collections, such as libraries, museums and archives

• Builds upon:– ISIL (ISO 15511)

– URI (IETF RFC 3986)

ISCI:

ISIL of the organisation

+ Collection identifier string

(organisation-specific)

• Each identified collection, fond or series

must be described (to a minimal extent)

ISO FDIS 27330

• Organisation-specific Collection identifier string:– At least one Unicode character– Unlimited length– Characters not allowed in URIs shall be encoded

• Memory organisations may use existing local collection identifiers, provided that:

• They conform to ISCI syntax and structure• They use proper encoding when necessary

International Standard Collection Identifier

ISO FDIS 27330

• An ISCI Registration Authority will coordinate the system in collaboration with national ISCI agencies

• ISCI RA will maintain a system supporting:– Assignment and utilisation of ISCIs– Harvesting of collection related metadata into the

global ISCI registry• Each memory organisation will be able to assign ISCIs

independently, with no support from the ISCI RA or national agency, provided that the organisation has one ISIL assigned.

• It should then make available collections metadata to ISCI NA or RA.

International Standard Collection Identifier

Standard identification of collections

“Identifiers – the keys to cultural information integration” (G. McKenna)

Benefits• Context information automatically connected to object

description through use of ISCI in the object description – No need to repeat shared information

• Objects belonging to the same group are automatically related to each other through the same ISCI

Persistent identification of collections

• ISCIs are easily expressed through URIs• Online, collections will be uniquely identified by suitable

URIs; • URIs will be resolvable into collection descriptions• URI can be managed through a resolving service, and

become persistent

Collection description and Linked data • Through standard identification Collection descriptions

can easily enter the Linked Data environment

Linked data principles according to T. Berners-Lee

Collection descriptions as Linked data

Why?

• Semantic Web is about meaning• Collection descriptions offer context

and meaning

• The more CLD are linked to other resources, the more effective they are

Collection descriptions as Linked dataBenefits • Data directly into the Web – Discoverable, no “hidding data silos”• Collection information easily available for use across apps• No duplications of effort:

– create only the data specific to the own purpose, and retrieve already existing data

• No need for crosswalks/mappings:– everyone uses the own metadata format, all triples can be aggregated

• No harvesting:– Data are already available on the Web, URI allow to track back content

wherever it is o the Web

• No proprietary software issues/developments– Everything relies on open standards

At first there were the hyperlinks.

Browsing by meaning

Then APIs allowed the integration of existing resources, data, services, taxonomies, metadata

etc., providing for the creation of exciting services

Web of documents

Web of applications

“The Web is wonderful because people can go on journeys of discovery, by following links to the things that interest them”

And now?

Publication of structured data directly onto the Web

The Web becomes one global database

Integration across services is made possible, without having to “fork” the data.

Browsing by meaning

Linked Data Cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. source: http://lod-cloud.net

• Collection description is underpracticed and has potential

• ISCI will offer us an opportunity to exploit the full potential of collection description

• Ready? Steady? Go!

Conclusions

giuliana.defrancesco@beniculturali.itg.defrancesco@smb.spk-berlin.de

Thank you for your attention