Two quick replies:
********
David,
Thank you for that, I've got a much clearer picture now. The tricky part
for contributors, of course, is that part about setting up the OAI
gateway onto their collections management systems. It will be great if
vendors add this to their products. Hopefully there will also be a nice
simple workflow for institutions that can't manage this, though,
something using spreadsheets, spit and glue. It might take us here at
MoL a while to get OAI-ed, let alone the Ullesthorpe Windmill (a fine
and upstanding piece of social and architectural history), so a variety
of paths to get that data into the PNDS and onwards would smooth the
rails.
I suppose it's not surprising that this discussion is gravitating
towards the problems and negatives of providing data to EDL by whatever
means.
*********
Nick, to your latest remarks, nothing I disagree with there. Showing
that it will be worth the cost, once we've established what that might
be (which is what this branch of the thread is all about - barriers to
involvement in EDL), is absolutely crucial. And, to try to drag things
once more to the question of APIs on the "output" side, this is why it's
important to start to express what we actually want from that output
side, and what we would regard as "valuable" services and outcomes.
*********
I must apologise, I'm never going to find the time to respond properly
to all the great discussion that this thread has generated about the
mass of issues around this topic. Thanks to everyone who's contributed.
Over the weekend I will try to put together a few use cases for an API
(output-side, not the APIs for managing data). Perhaps this will give a
new slant on the question.
All the best,
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
Museum of London is changing; our lower galleries will be closed while they undergo a major new development. Visit www.museumoflondon.org.uk to find out more.
London's Burning - explore how the Great Fire of London shaped the city we see today www.museumoflondon.org.uk/londonsburning
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
David Dawson
Sent: 08 February 2008 10:14
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] APIs and EDL
Jeremy
The intention for the EDL is that the Open Archives Initiative Protocol
for Metadata Harvesting is the most likely protocol that will be used by
institutions to make their metadata available. This is already used for
the Discover Service. This means that once the OAI gateway (effectively
a type of API) is configured (fairly easy technically, rather more
tricky to get mappings right) then the updating is all automatic.
What this means is that once the OAI gateway is set up, then the data
can be fed to Discover, and from its API, also to Culture24 (24 Hour
Museum) and EDL. The OAI gateway of the institution's own database can
also be harvested by other services that are given permission (which
could be a subset from the database of 19th century paintings or the
Egyptian collections where this can be specified by a query of the
database).
OAI has simple Dublin Core as the 'default' - and minimum - data
structure. OAI supports any other XML schema - so, for the Discover
Service - we have implemented a slightly richer schema that can 'power'
a WHO, WHAT, WHERE and WHEN type of search. This relatively simple
schema can be used to bring data from across a range of databases built
using richer structures (such as SPECTRUM or EAD). If you are interested
- then see http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/pns/pndsdcap/
Or a presentation by Pete Johnson of UKOLN - Metadata for the People's
Network Discovery Service Pete Johnston - 27 April 2005 PNDS Start-Up
Meeting, London.
HTML:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/activities/events/pnds/start-up-200
5-04/pndsmeta_files/v3_document.html
Powerpoint 2000:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/activities/events/pnds/start-up-200
5-04/pndsmeta.ppt
My colleague Phill Purdy is working with UKOLN on improved and detailed
guidance for projects who will be contributing their metadata to the
Discover Service. In theory, once a collections management system
supplier has implemented an OAI gateway, this can easily be used, though
the mapping from the more complex schema to simple DC or the Discover
schema may require some 'tweaking' - which needs some thought by the
institution, but minimal technical effort.
The approach being taken for EDL is to aggregate metadata at national
and/or domain portals, and then to aggregate to a European level. The
main new development is to prepare terminologies as SKOS - which can
then be used for automated semantic interoperability - a reasonable step
towards a Semantic Web approach.
Hope this helps (but don't ask me about terminology and SKOS!!!! I am
told this is easy ...)
D
David Dawson
Senior Policy Adviser - Digital Futures
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) Victoria House,
Southampton Row, London WC1B 4EA
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.mla.gov.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Ottevanger, Jeremy
Sent: 08 February 2008 09:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: APIs and EDL
Hi John,
Plenty of good points, and though I don't really want to cross over into
whether or not the EDL project is a good thing over all these are
obviously factors that will influence our decisions on whether to
participate or not.
<quote>
Hmm - I think this depends on what you mean by "putting online". The
technical issues associated with tools and infrastructure to
automatically and sustainably feed updated content to content
aggregators etc, would seem very similar to those of "putting online" by
having access to a webserver somewhere.
</quote>
It looks from this and other parts of your post that your chief concern
relates to pushing content to the EDL. This is very understandable, I
know little about that side but it's true that even for institutions
like yours and mine, that have solid foundations for this process of
content provision, a fair amount of work would still be involved to get
to a position of "sustainably feeding updated content to content
aggregators".
That is one side, the content management side, and it's an important
factor in whether institutions will be inclined to join in. My API
question was asked with the "output" side at the top of my mind, though.
I'm thinking of the process of embedding a Google Custom Search Engine
on your site - a snippet of HTML and javascript - and dreaming that a
museum could do this with the EDL search engine just as simply.
<quote>
I think a model which depends on manual gathering, polishing and
delivery of data sets to central hosts, who then tweak it by hand some
more, is more or less doomed before it starts. The challenge (and I
don't think it's impossible (!??!)) is to develop an infrastructure
which allows this process to be automated and sustained, for a diverse
range of museums.
I'm not aware of much effort having gone into this so far. It seems a
potentially really useful area to develop.
</quote>
David or Nick may be the ones to tell you more about current ideas on
harvesting. Yes, it will doubtless be tricky. I'm hoping that at least
it will mean that, nationally, we have one dominant protocol for this
sort of operation.
<quote>
All our computerised records have been online for several years, and all
online content updating is fully automated and hence sustainable. While
our service could undoubtedly be improved, we can do this ourselves, or
get project funding to do so.
</quote>
Our services here could certainly be improved, and I'm not too proud to
say that if EDL's search engine was more powerful that my own then I'd
use it to search our data. Similarly, I'd be only too pleased to see our
content held in one place with that belonging to many other institutions
- haven't we all (as museum users, if not practitioners) wanted to see
cross-collections search, like, for ever? And if it happens, why would
you want to be left out? And if you're not left out, how would we
squeeze even more value from it? Why, by making sure that the power of
it - the data, the services, the user communities - wasn't tied to one
website but employed where people need it, just as good API-presenting
services are right now.
<quote>
It's quite enough work for museums to maintain their own collections
managment data. Having to keep an eye on maintainence of separated
chunks of external data would simply not be feasible. Hence the need for
the links to be automated.
Maintain data once, in one place, and automate re-use as much as
possible. I have a dream...
</quote>
Indeed, absolutely right. Building those services to keep the data
synchronised is going to be a necessary step to do this well.
Thanks again,
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
Museum of London is changing; our lower galleries will be closed while
they undergo a major new development. Visit www.museumoflondon.org.uk to
find out more.
London's Burning - explore how the Great Fire of London shaped the city
we see today www.museumoflondon.org.uk/londonsburning
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