Hi Trevor
This is the thing - not only would it be fantastic to create something, or find a thing that does what we need it to - but we're very much up against the realities of how events information is collected and shared inside, as well as outside, institutions and local authorities.
The scenario you describe is pretty much exactly the one that I've encountered on a daily basis, and I'm keen to figure out a way of getting information out of proprietary and in-house systems that means we can import information wholesale. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fact that English Heritage and the National Trust are already collating this information for publication, in a spreadsheet-based system, means that we can effectively import events data from both organisations, whenever we are able to get hold of it.
As some of our own process is manual, it doesn't need bells and whistles - we just need a csv, and I can append some of the information manually if needs be: Even the dynamic csv from Liverpool needs tweaking... The aim is to *reduce*, not increase, the amount of time it takes for the events teams to publicise their work - and to do that in whichever way is most practical at the time.
A lightweight technical solution that enables automatic scraping/spidering from websites would be ideal, but is not practical in some cases. Working on this alongside more hands-on solutions would seem to be the way forward, and might lead to the creation of an unbeatable argument that persuades the Powers That Be to change the way things are done for the sanity (and efficiency) of everyone involved.
Kind regards
Ruth Harper
Network Officer, Culture24
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of REYNOLDS, Trevor
Sent: 19 June 2012 07:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Events aggregation
This is all wonderful stuff I'm sure. But this situation you probably have in a large institution is:
One of more events teams whose IT skills are limited to a word processor, an email programme and a spreadsheet (almost certainly Microsoft). They probably d use social media personally and perhaps for the institution.. They may have some events management software (probably proprietary, if not then built in house 3-8 years ago). The events management system will have been chosen on the basis of business requirements focused on assisting the management of the events and neither they nor their ICT colleagues will have considered exchange of data outside the organisation (probably not even inside the organisation). If they are lucky the events management software will interface with their organisations ticketing system, but there is a good chance that they enter details into the two things separately. For the institutions web site they probably type details into the default interface for their organisations CMS.
If you asked the events team wouldn't it be good if you could enter your events data in one place and it could be automatically made available elsewhere they would almost certainly say yes. If you start talking about calendar and microformats their eyes will glaze over and they will go off and do something more useful.
If you say to the ICT team wouldn't this be a good thing to do, they may say, yes it sounds like a good idea, the business unit needs to write a business case and a SOUR. The Events team will say ??! and in any case we are already putting in lots of unpaid overtime running the events and publicising them so we don't have the time.
Trevor Reynolds
Collections Registrar, English Heritage
37 Tanner Row, York, YO1 6WP tel: 01904 601905
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hanan Cohen
Sent: 19 June 2012 06:22
To: REYNOLDS, Trevor
Subject: Re: Events aggregation
Hi,
You can explore iCal by creating one yourself.
Go to Google Calendar. Create some events if you don't have any.
In the dropdown for this calendar, choose "Calendar settings".
Make public.
At the bottom of the page you will see Calendar Address and three icons for XML, ICAL and HTML.
Save to your computer and "view source".
This option is also available in Microsoft Outlook.
Of course, there is a difference between the formal standard and how it is inplemented by diffrent software vendors.
If you want to use a common implementation, you should explore how it's done by them. there is no sense inplannig to use a feature that is not implemented by popular vendors.
HTH
Hanan Cohen - Webmaster
Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem
________________________________________
From: Museums Computer Group [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Andy Mabbett [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 1:59 AM
To: Hanan Cohen
Subject: Re: Events aggregation
iCalendar has a "category" property, which takes multiple values.
On 18 June 2012 23:05, Richard Light <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Andy,
>
> iCalendar would encode the basic "where and when" of an event, but
> Ruth has come back with some additional information which C24 need
> (free-to-attend; event type, etc.) How would that work with
> hCalendar? Could it accommodate concepts from a different
> "namespace"? If not, I guess we would be looking at RDFa as an implementation framework.
>
> Richard
>
>
> On 18/06/2012 17:39, Andy Mabbett wrote:
>>
>> On 18 June 2012 14:47, Ruth Harper<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> There isn't a standard way to collect and distribute events data
>>
>> Oh yes there is: the iCalendar standard:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/iCalendar
>>
>> If each institution marks up its events, on its own website, with the
>> hCalendar microformat:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hCalendar
>>
>> then they can be parsed as iCalendar events by freely available
>> tools, and read into databases/ calendar apps, for reuse elsewhere.
>>
>> Events can also be published in RDFa/ microdata/ as Linked Data,
>> using iCalendar parameters, or as separate iCalendar files, but
>> hCalendar offers a low barrier-of-entry. It used by, for example,
>> Upcoming, and is also recognised by Google for their search indexes.
>>
>> I'm happy to expand on this here, or to offer assistance to
>> organisations wishing to implement it.
>>
>
> --
> *Richard Light*
>
>
> ****************************************************************
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--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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