Hi John, thanks for your thoughts.
My hope (ever the optimist) was that museums would be able to bypass the
step of putting their data online themselves, with the technical
expertise this can require, and concentrate on providing this data to
content aggregators and thence to EDL, ultimately benefitting from an
API that would let them present their collections online in their own
context (as well as on the EDL, sorry, Europeana, portal). As you and
Nick say, getting that structured digitised data in the first place is a
big enough challenge, and part of the EDL project is meant to be
digitisation, though I think this is down to individual states to
organise (perhaps it doesn't include data curation anyway). My thinking
was, if what is required of small museums to get their collections
online is reduced to providing the data and then using the API, rather
than building their own engines, perhaps this would actually provide an
incentive to them to supply their content.
Another way to look at it: just say that future funding from one stream
or another, perhaps your local Hub, depended on your organisation
depositing a set of data for use within the EDL, what would you want
back? Would you have any interest in working with the application that
housed that data, or would you not be bothered? I have no idea if EDL
will flourish, let alone if there will ever be any sort of obligation to
house your content there, of course, but if it was in there then surely
you'd want to be able to play with it?
As you say, the big issue of decent data is yet to be solved. But if you
have it, and it's in EDL, then the question is, what would you want to
do with it? EDL could take quite a load off and this is where we get to
say how.
Apologies for getting behind with replies, lunch time is only so long,
but will catch up with all the other great e-mails as soon as I can.
Cheers, 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
John Faithfull
Sent: 06 February 2008 14:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] APIs and EDL
Hi folks,
As Mike says:
>Applications - either web or not - which don't give us easy,
programmatic access into our data should be resisted.
This is the key. But I think our biggest problems are not so much at the
technical end (eg APIs), but in the simple lack of online museum
collection data per se.
Once things are online, almost regardless of backend technology, they
can be played with, scraped, harvested, and mashed up, and numerous
tools will emerge. Simple HTML itself, especially when generated from
structured database backends, provides a large measure of "easy
programmatic access".
I think that the current lack of killer "one stop" apps in the museum
sector is not so much due to lack of projects, technologies, or even
standards, but lack of available basic collection content for them to
work with.
It seems to be relatively (depressingly?) easy to get project funding
for big "top down" initiatives, or "one off" exercises in which samll
sets of data are hand-gathered, manipulated and put in one place, for a
particular project.
However, getting information about objects in most individual museum
collections online in a way which is sustainable seems to be about as
far off as ever. This requires having people in museums who know about
their collections and objects, and have time, tools and resources (and
managment support), to deliver ongoing content development, especially
in object catalogues.
It should be seen as a basic requirement, but I don't feel very
optimistic about this...
Cheers
John
Dr JW Faithfull
Hunterian Museum
University of Glasgow
G12 8QQ
Tel: 0141 330 4213
Fax: 0141 330 8001
Email: [log in to unmask]
Online catalogue: http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Mike Ellis
Sent: 06 February 2008 13:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: APIs and EDL
Hi Jeremy
I know that you and I have talked briefly about this before but I just
wanted to add slightly more public support for this.
The notion of an API in *any* content-rich application should be moving
not only in our sphere of knowledge ("I know what an API is") but *fast*
into our sphere of requirement ("give me an API or I won't play").
Whatever the context, however the application is going to be used (or
not), we should (I'm passionate about this and would actually say
*MUST*) be very firmly pushing our institutions in this direction.
Applications - either web or not - which don't give us easy,
programmatic access into our data should be resisted. The siloing of
data - which we're all too familiar with - has come from lack of
standards and proprietary ("no in, no out") systems.
I did a presentation a while back in which I bang on endlessly about
this - see
http://www.slideshare.net/dmje/web2-and-distributed-services-mike-ellis-
v2. If anyone wants me to come and give a similar one, I'd be delighted
to do so...
So yes. EDL should have a feature-rich API. A good rule of thumb for
this functionality is to ask: "how much of what can be done by back-end
and developer built web systems can be done and accessed via the API?"
In an ideal world it'd be 100%. If it's 0 then run away, fast!
I'll be in contact with you off-list to continue the conversation ;-)
Cheers
Mike
Mike Ellis
Solutions Architect
Eduserv
[log in to unmask]
tel: 01225 474300
fax: 01225 474301
www.eduserv.org.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group on behalf of Ottevanger, Jeremy
Sent: Tue 05/02/2008 12:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: APIs and EDL
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
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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For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the list, visit
the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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