Dear all,
I've had a few very useful replies to this off list, but was wondering if
anyone else had anything to add? I know there's lots of activity in this
area at the moment, and would be very interested to hear people's
thoughts...
regards
Paul
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Paul Groves <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> [and apologies to Helen Bleck for slightly re-purposing a similar title
> she used for a post made to MCG in June 2010 when she was planning the
> brief/spec for a heritage portal for East Lothian Council Museums Service!
> BTW I've taken note of the extremely useful comments made by Linda Ellis
> and others in reply to that original post.]
>
> Here at the Ashmolean we're currently trying to pull together a brief for
> a tender for a new international (wider than EU), but focused (single
> curatorial area) heritage portal. Basically we wish to provide a way to
> browse and cross-search a number of geographically disparate collections
> through a single 'portal', though also with the option to search/browse
> just a single institution's collection through the portal. Not all of the
> partnering institutions will have an existing online collections website,
> but for those that do, we would like to be able to link back front he
> portal to the relevant object record on their own collections website.
>
> The intended audience for this is primarily researchers, but it needs to
> be accessible for a non-specialist, but interested (adult) audience too.
>
> Like Helen in her original post, I'm looking for any advice or tips from
> others who've attempted something similar (even if narrower in geographical
> reach). In particular, if anyone has any portal briefs/specification docs
> that they don't mind sharing with us (we don't need to see cost
> information...), then that would be fantastic!
>
> There are a number of issues here that make such a portal potentially
> challenging, in addition to the "usual" issues (e.g. mapping data that has
> been catalogued in quite different ways and with different thesauri to a
> single schema, variable data quality etc.) faced by national/regional
> portal projects.
>
> First, because the partner institutions that may be involved (and we don't
> know exactly which ones these will be yet, as the list may grow over time)
> will be worldwide, as far as I'm aware this would prevent just directly
> piggy-backing this focused portal onto, say, CultureGrid/Europeana, as a
> number of the partners are likely to be from outside of Europe and, as I
> understand it, would not be able to have their content in Europeana, for
> example.. On the other hand, we *do* want to be able to feed any content
> supplied to the portal from UK/European institutions (where licensing
> permits) to CultureGrid/Europeana...
>
> Secondly there is the issue of potentially either having to support
> multiple languages (for the object data fields) or of translating these
> (either manually or automatically - at least for searching), as its likely
> that at least some of the potential partner institutions will not have
> English language versions of the key fields currently available (e.g.
> titles, descriptions, materials, techniques, associated places - though
> thesaurus-type terms should in theory be a *little* bit easier to create
> mappings for, though of course different institutions will be using
> different thesauri...).
>
> There are also, of course, a whole host of potential
> collaboration/political issues involved, but that's another matter...
>
> We pretty much know what we need to achieve in terms of functionality, but
> *how* to implement this is a different matter. One of the issues with
> trying to put together a brief for such work is the *range* of possible
> technical approaches to achieving this (or any portal project, for that
> matter). We've tentatively discussed the project with a number of UK-based
> suppliers, most of which have outlined quite different possible technical
> approaches (some *very* different...) and different schema (including
> Spectrum XML, LIDO XML, CIDOC-CRM, ESE and other DC-based ones etc.) to map
> to.
>
> At present we're "technology agnostic" in the technical solution to this,
> as long as it will work and meet our functional requirements and adheres to
> common standards that can easily be mapped to others (e.g. those used by
> CultureGrid/Europeana). Its therefore a little difficult to know how
> *specific* to be about technical requirements and standards in the brief
> for the tender, as we don't necessarily wish to exclude different
> approaches at this stage - part of the initial work for the tender will be
> in fleshing out and enhancing the specification - but we need to give the
> potential suppliers enough to go on!
>
> We have identified three main components, though the way this works in
> practise may differ, depending on the technical approach taken:
>
> 1) A means of exposing and harvesting the object data from each
> participating institution, after mapping the data that comes out of their
> collections management system to some common schema (tbc)
>
> 2) Software that will store, index and make the harvested data available
> for querying (e.g. via an API) or available for further harvesting
>
> 3) A user front-end (i.e. the website) that will enable the user to
> search, browse, compare and utilise the data in a variety of ways.
>
> Beyond this (and specifying the typical range of fields we're considering,
> and providing more detail about the desired front-end functionality), what
> further level of detail do we need to go into for a brief for such work?
>
> Ideally we would like the user front-end to be independent of the the
> back-end system, to avoid "lock-in" to a single delivery approach. It is
> not entirely clear to us if we should be tendering for the development of
> the front-end separate from that of the back-end, but on the whole I think
> we would prefer to go to tender for an overall package to deliver both,
> though not necessarily (or even preferentially) from a single supplier.
>
> I would be very interested to hear (on or off list, or via Skype/phone)
> from those on the list who have been involved with other portal projects,
> even if they're regional, rather than national or international ones.
>
> regards
>
> Paul
>
> --
> Paul Groves
> Project Manager
> *Eastern Art Online: Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art*
>
> Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology
> University of Oxford
> Beaumont Street
> Oxford OX1 2PH
>
> W: jameelcentre.ashmolean.org
>
> E: [log in to unmask]
> T: +44 (0)1865 278 289
>
> Skype: pgroves999
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/paul_gr0ves
> LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/pgroves
>
> Open: Tuesday–Sunday 10–6 (closed on Mondays)
> Information: T: +44(0)1865 278 000 / W: www.ashmolean.org
>
> For disclaimer see http://www.ashmolean.org/email/
> ………………………………………………………………………...*
>
> S**AVE** M**ANET** **FOR THE **P**UBLIC**
> *EDOUARD MANET’S *P**ORTRAIT** **OF** M**ADEMOISELLE** C**LAUS**
> *On display at the Ashmolean until August 2012
>
> We have raised over 92% of the total required to save the painting for
> public display.
> Please support our campaign by making a gift today:
> www.ashmolean.org/manet
>
>
> ......................................................................................................................................................
>
>
--
Paul Groves
Project Manager
*Eastern Art Online: Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art*
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology
University of Oxford
Beaumont Street
Oxford OX1 2PH
W: jameelcentre.ashmolean.org
E: [log in to unmask]
T: +44 (0)1865 278 289
Skype: pgroves999
Twitter: http://twitter.com/paul_gr0ves
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/pgroves
Open: Tuesday–Sunday 10–6 (closed on Mondays)
Information: T: +44(0)1865 278 000 / W: www.ashmolean.org
For disclaimer see http://www.ashmolean.org/email/
………………………………………………………………………...*
S**AVE** M**ANET** **FOR THE **P**UBLIC**
*EDOUARD MANET’S *P**ORTRAIT** **OF** M**ADEMOISELLE** C**LAUS**
*On display at the Ashmolean until August 2012
We have raised over 92% of the total required to save the painting for
public display.
Please support our campaign by making a gift today: www.ashmolean.org/manet
......................................................................................................................................................
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