Dear all,
Really interesting thread. Just in response to Joe's original question -
there seems to be a fairly consistent and very positive thread of
thinking over the past few years away from siloed internal systems and
toward more horizontal systems integration. This development in systems
in some ways reflects practice in that museums have tended to combine
functions such as documentation, web publishing and digitisation into
either single posts or integrated multi-disciplinary teams.
This thread has at various points encompassed the need for greater
modularity in internal systems, then the need for middleware (systems
such as the wonderful Global Objects Database - GOD - at the Science
Museum come to mind) and now the need for systems to be able to exchange
data via internal API.
Broadly put, the more freely knowledge and information assets can flow
across the whole enterprise, the more valuable they become. It remains
the case that many people still use separate, disconnected systems for
Collections Management, Digital Asset Management, User, Rights and
Access Control and web publishing. While these systems remain
disconnected, it is impossible to move onto the next phase, which is to
derive real-time intelligence about the overall operation and impact of
the organisation from its internal systems (which in another world,
would be known as a 'business intelligence system' for museums).
Some of the Collections Management System vendors are now actively
exploring the development of system architectures which promote
'in-house' interoperability and the management of knowledge and objects
as an enterprise-wide proposition. They are also looking into the idea
of deriving 'performance' data about the museum and its collections from
the data that flows across these systems.
A longer-term aim of the Collections Trust's is to move towards the
development of Collections Management and Documentation systems which
take advantage of co-referencing to support cataloguing practice that is
augmented with semantically-enriched information. Augmented cataloguing
is essentially cataloguing that is facilitated by semantic referencing
and intelligent workflows in order to 'meet the cataloguer halfway' and
to part-automate the cataloguing processes that lend themselves to this
possibility. Of course, in all this brave new world stuff, we also have
to be aware that basic cataloguing, inventory control and documentation
backlogs haven't gone away and that people still need a working
familiarity with the basic principles!
Quick plug - at the OpenCulture conference on the 26th and 27th June, we
have SPECTRUM Roadmap meeting that is looking to map out the current and
future needs of these systems. You can find out more about the event and
the meeting at
http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/events/openculture-2012.
All best,
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Max Hammond
Sent: 18 May 2012 07:40
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Time to publish structured data?
Hi all,
That's pretty much what our analysis of Linked Data found last year
(http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/559/) - the key benefits of adopting
this kind of approach, and supporting technology, are internal - as
ever, the benefits of opening your data are much more indirect (although
of course may still be important!).
Regarding the question of measuring impact of publishing structured data
(or open data - the terms are not interchangeable), I can recommend
"APIs: A Strategy Guide" (Jacobsen, Brail and Woods 2011, O'Reilly) as a
good starting point for thinking the issues through. There's some
(RESTful API-specific) technical discussion in there, but the book
discusses at length the strategy, drivers, and business case for APIs -
open and closed.
Cheers,
Max
--
Dr Max Hammond <[log in to unmask]>
t: +44 20 3239 2783 | t: +49 441 3091 9899 | m: +49 173 578 2440
USt-IdNr: DE281543175
-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Whitson Cloud
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Donnerstag, 17. Mai 2012 16:49
Subject: Re: Time to publish structured data?
Yes Joe,
That is something we are talking about. Big gains to be had internally.
Also I wonder if any organisation that doesn't develop an
aptitude/attitude for sharing information/data internally might struggle
when trying to do the same externally.
Jonathan
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Joseph Padfield
Sent: 17 May 2012 14:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Time to publish structured data?
From this and a number of other forums it seems that there are a
growing number of discussions about structured and linked data. Looking
at the benefits and the complexities of publishing information in this
form and how it will improve how other people will be able to find and
use our data.
In addition to using this type of technology to present data to the
"public", I was just wondering how many people have actually started to
use it in-house, to help develop internal systems and processes.
For larger institutions it is not unusual to have a range of loosely or
possibly unconnected digital systems, that store institutional data,
which could be linked together to provide a more consistent view of an
institutions internal digital landscape.
Are people beginning to move beyond research and actually look at using
more structured or linked data within organisations to improve how we
will be able to find and use our own data on a day-to-day basis ?
Just a thought :-)
Joe
On 17/05/12 09:53, Mia wrote:
> The recent announcement of Google's integration of their 'Knowledge
Graph' (e.g.
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/introducing-knowledge-graph-thi
ngs-not.html, which 'currently contains more than 500 million objects,
as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between
these different objects') into search results seems a pretty compelling
reason to publish information that you want people to find on your
website in structured formats, whether schema.org or something else.
>
> For background, http://schema.org/ is a project from Google, Bing,
Yahoo, etc that publishes 'a collection of schemas, i.e., html tags,
that webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by
major search providers'.
>
> Their formats aren't perfect for museums, but aren they good enough to
justify the effort of implementing it, given the potential benefits?
>
> And is anyone already publishing their 'visit us', events or
collections information with schema.org markup?
>
> Cheers, Mia
>
>
> Sent from my handheld computing device
> ****************************************************************
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--
*Joseph Padfield*
Conservation Scientist
Scientific Department
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London WC2N 5DN
44 (0)20 7747 2553
Email <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Follow JoePadfield on
Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/JoePadfield> Link 2
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