Tehmina

Everyone gets confused by the number of project names, brands, tlas etc
- but I can try and help a bit.

The European Digital Library will offer access to digital collections
across Europe. The MICHAEL project has 2 main roles to play - firstly as
a Service Registry which holds the machine-to-machine information needed
about databases, and secondly as a mechanism for identifying 'packaged'
resources (eg a packaged website about a topic) that is relevant to the
search being made by the user.

The Integrated Architecture Project aims to bring together the
collections information (currently in MICHAEL and Cornucopia) and the
item-level information harvested in the People's Network Discover
Service, and to combine this rich dataset with the publishing and venue
information (exhibitions, events etc) in the Culture24 database. This
information (or subsets) can then be linked into, or harvested by, other
services. This will include the European Digital Library. This will mean
that the metadata harvested into the IAP (ie information about museum
collections) will be available on the museums own site, through
Culture24 and through the European Digital Library. MLA is working in
partnership with MDA and Culture 24 to make sure that these things DO
join up. I am leading a Workpackage in the EDLNet project on human and
domain interoperability - which is sometimes quite challenging.

As an example of other services that will use cultural sector
information, MLA is currently working with the Strategic Content
Alliance
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/eresources/contentalliance.aspx)
on the very early stages of a very interesting interoperability pilot,
which would also re-use the collections information already in Discover.
Partners include the British Library, Becta and the BBC. Also, as you
will know, all schools are now to implement Virtual Learning
Environments - which will be used by teachers and pupils in school. One
VLE provider has tested harvesting MICHAEL data into their service - so
it is a source that is integrated into the platform that is integrated
into their daily practice. We will be working with Culture24 and MDA
build on the feedback that we have had so far.

Many of you will know that museum collections databases are rarely
crawled by internet search engines - and though we all know that
everyone uses them, they are very inefficient and finding detailed
information. I am working with the Research Information Network on a
study looking at the use being made of collections by researchers, and
this is clearly indicating that researchers of all types are missing
vast swathes of information about museum collections as they do not
appear in Google and there is no 'marketing strategy' for our sector. As
Jeremy says - having an API for this sort of thing is critical - and
once we have a critical mass - then Google and the other ISPs will be
very interested. They are not interested in anything that does not have
a mass of content - and most museums are far too small to be of any
interest. However, you can easily imagine integrating collections data
with things like the Google and Microsoft mapping/satellite services -
all of which will drive traffic to cultural sector institutions.

So - the aim of the IAP is to reduce the confusion of project names, and
to provide the very type of API-based service that Jeremy talked of,
whilst also enabling user-facing services. We are working to make sure
that the same thing happens at the European level - and there is also
the World Digital Library - just to make things more interesting!

I hope this helps

David





David Dawson
Senior Policy Adviser - Digital Futures
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)
Victoria House, Southampton Row, London WC1B 4EA
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.mla.gov.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Tehmina Goskar
Sent: 06 February 2008 11:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: APIs and EDL

How does this fit into other 'initiatives' such as MICHAEL and the
array of other European-level digital projects?

Will those working on the Integrated Architecture Project be looking
at this?  Should UK initiatives be different from similar 'European'
ones?

What will EDLnet provide that is unique, wanted and usable that we
can't find elsewhere (e.g. via Google)?

Of course I am not being cynical.

Tehmina

On 05/02/2008, Ottevanger, Jeremy <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> 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
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find out more.
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>
>
>
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-- 
Tehmina Goskar, AMA

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