Perhaps the big win only happens after lots of smaller wins (and a few
setbacks), but will anything happen without real world drivers?
In terms of practicalities, are there any use cases for other organisations
testing out the BM's model? One potential use might be using it as a basis
for linking to collections across various museum sites e.g. Wellcome links
to similar objects on the Science Museum site which links to others on the
British Museum site which in turn links out. To a large extent those
object-specific links wouldn't be automagically machine-discoverable, so it
would require both a willingness to link to other collections sites and
some curatorial input - is that at all realistic given current resources?
And Doug - thanks for that link, not least because I had no idea someone
was using NMSI (as was) coins and medals data!
Cheers, Mia
--------------------------------------------
http://openobjects.org.uk/
http://twitter.com/mia_out
On 3 April 2013 17:40, Dominic Oldman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Joe, Mia,
>
> I have to agree with you about documentation. I think that this has been a
> big problem.
>
> Time spent on the BM mapping has been more about getting the right
> approach and providing models that can easily be incorporated into other
> museums but also from the perspective of needing to create applications
> that operate across different local implementations. We didn't want to
> release documentation until were happy with the approach - and this has
> changed over the last year.
>
> The Yale Center for British Art are piloting a draft of the manual and
> have just used it to complete their CIDOC CRM mapping. Each part of the BM
> mapping is described separately and in sections that resemble (sort of)
> SPECTRUM sections. They include museum object examples and also provide a
> listing in RDF that match the diagrams. I am hoping the manual will also
> form part of training that we have agreed with the V&A this summer.
>
> The objective of the CRM-SIG is to create a memory of mappings that grows
> with requirements perhaps leading to some tools. The document will occupy a
> WIKI (MediaWiki of course!) for which we have asked for a CIDOC-CRM.org sub
> domain.
>
> I hope that the document will answer a lot of questions and start the ball
> rolling for further documentation.
>
> Just another point though. We use Index+ from SSL for our data which is a
> hierarchical database not a relational one. Some years ago our Collection
> Systems Manager (a PhD in Computer Science, a programmer and a Collections
> specialist) spent probably 9 months documenting the database in a
> relational format. We have an A0 diagram of the entities and the table
> relationships. It is very hard to decipher.
>
> When you look at a CRM mapping of the same data you can follow it without
> any technical background at all. As a consequence it is far easier for
> people to develop against and YCBA currently has students developing some
> demonstration apps (that span Yale and BM data). The data model is included
> in the documentation as a comparison.
>
> D
>
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