Dear all,
Some of you will know of the European Digital Library, an EC project
that is currently in a prototyping phase (known as EDLnet
http://www.europeandigitallibrary.eu/edlnet/). It is part of the wider
Digital Libraries Initiative
(http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/wh
at_is_dli/index_en.htm) and shortly after that I get lost in the maze of
EC projects, initiatives, directorates etc. Anyway, its final form is up
in the air, but essentially it is hoped that it will aggregate digital
content from museums, libraries and archives across Europe. Quite what
will be held, the technical architecture, how the content will be
accessed and maintained and many other questions are working their way
through the system, but one day it may offer a partial solution to
cross-collection searching, at least for a subset of European-owned
material. Apologies to those who know more about this subject, I'm
almost certain I've misrepresented it!
I got interested in the project when I attended a meeting late last
year, at which the organisers were brainstorming user requirements and
ideas for the interface. I went along with a particular axe to grind,
which was the need for an API. The basic rationale was that EDL will
have limited appeal for users if they have to go to a single portal site
to search, whereas it would serve a lot more people if it was the engine
behind many sites scattered around the web. For organisations that might
contribute content to the central repository, too, it would be a far
more attractive proposition if they knew that they could then access the
data themselves, embed EDL functionality in their sites or mash it up
with mediating content, maps etc. EDL could act as a sophisticated
online collections database for a small museum that could never
countenance building its own search engine, much as one can embed google
site search into your own page at present. This would be good for EDL
because it could be quite a strong motive for contributing content.
Overall I think that an API could actually be much more useful than a
"portal" website.
So to the purpose of this e-mail. An upcoming EDL "users and usability"
meeting, in March, will be looking more closely at the subject of APIs,
and in preparation for this I was hoping to get some thoughts from the
MCGers about:
* whether and why an API would be useful to them, or influence
their decision on whether to contribute content to EDL
* what features might prove useful
* any examples of APIs or of their application that they think
provide a model for what EDL's API could offer or enable
It would be nice to feel I could represent the thoughts of a good
portion of the practitioners in the UK, or at least more than myself
alone. Thanks in advance,
Jeremy
Jeremy Ottevanger
Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
Museum of London Group
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London. N1 7ED
Tel: 020 7410 2207
Fax: 020 7600 1058
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.museumoflondon.org.uk
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