Yes, Jim, I do think there's mileage in that. You're right to be looking
for existing formats or standards out there for museum object data, so
that  that machine tags can be co-ordinated with or correspond to. As
you say, DC is the obvious candidate. It is of course limited in some
ways, but alternatives like CDWA[lite] probably won't work as well for
some classes of object (like natural history collections) and in any
case it needs to remain simple to use, so DC remains a good candidate.
Something along the lines of the following might work (not specifically
DC):

mobject:institution="Museum of London"
mobject:title="Lodon from Southwark" 
mobject:type="painting" 
mobject:creator="Dutch school"

I'm keen to investigate the potential of a microformat for museum
objects, too (and have done a little groundwork) and really there's not
a great deal of difference between the two, or there shouldn't be. I
think that whatever solution is arrived at for one should be readily
portable to the other. As I say, I think that it's most important that
format (machine tag or microformat) is easy to use; the priority is to
flag up the existence of objects (and their holders) and ideally a place
to find out more, rather than to try to capture reams of information in
that format itself. I'd be very interested to hear where your thoughts
are taking you.

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
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Jim O'Donnell
Sent: 23 April 2007 12:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] Flickr talk at the National Maritime Museum, Thursday
19th April

I thought that was a very interesting talk the other day.

Following on fro the discussion of machine tags, I've started messing
about with Dublin Core and Dan Champion's 'book:' tags, just to get an
idea in my own mind of how tagging various types of object might work:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eatyourgreens/tags/machinetags/
Does anyone else think there's some value in a common tag format for
museum objects?

Jim 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of 
>Fiona Romeo
>Sent: 16 April 2007 13:03
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Flickr talk at the National Maritime Museum, Thursday 19th 
>April
>
>Hello,
>
>This is an invitation to our digital colleagues in other museums to 
>attend a talk by George Oates, lead designer of Flickr 
>(http://flickr.com/), the innovative and massively successful photo 
>management and sharing service.
>
>George will be giving an extended version of her talk from the recent 
>SXSW conference:
>http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/programming/panels/?action=sho
>w&id=IAP060222
>
>The talk will be hosted by the Digital Media team at the National 
>Maritime Museum and take place on Thursday 19th April at 12.30-1.30pm. 
>Seating is limited so if you plan to join us, please email me to 
>reserve your place.
>
>Thanks,
>Fiona
>
>
>---
>
>Fiona Romeo
>Head of Digital Media
>National Maritime Museum - Sea, ships, time and the stars
> 

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