Heritage Information Research Articles

Not just another portal, not just another digital library: A portrait of Europeana as an application program interface

To the general public, Europeana is primarily perceived as a portal exposing a great amount of cultural heritage information. Even though this perception is not entirely misleading, the main goal of Europeana is rather to build an open services platform enabling users and cultural institutions to access and manage a large collection of surrogate objects representing digital and digitized content via an application program interface (API). The paper covers some details of the overall data space schema, of the API description and of the Europeana Portal implementation; it also discusses use cases and the mental approach that users, in particular cultural institutions, should adopt to completely exploit the potential of the Europeana services platform together with a discussion of related risks. The authors represent key players in the Europeana specification, development and implementation process currently under way.

An Introduction to Digital Convergence: Libraries, Archives, and Museums in the Information Age

The idea for this special issue arose at the Cultural Heritage Information Professionals (CHIPs) workshop in April 2008. Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Florida State University, and the Ringling Museum of Art, the workshop’s goals were to explore the ability of educators to meet the information needs of cultural heritage organizations, and to encourage a closer relationship between education and practice in library and information science, museum studies, and archival studies programs. This workshop provided a valuable opportunity for the deans, directors, and faculty of those programs to meet and share ideas with professionals from the nation’s libraries, museums, and archives about the challenges facing information professionals as they work to transcend the traditional boundaries between libraries, archives, and museums, and meet user needs in the information age (for more information about the workshop, including the final workshop report, please see: http://chips.ci.fsu.edu). Based on the outcomes of the CHIPs workshop, the editors of Library Quarterly, Archival Science, and Museum Management and Curatorship agreed to publish three special issues (one for each journal) exploring the shared information needs and challenges facing libraries, archives, and museums in the information age; the overlapping educational goals of library and information science, archival studies, and museum studies programs; and areas of convergence for educators and professionals working to meet user needs in libraries, archives, and museums. This ‘‘special triple issue’’ was driven by the idea that the increased use of and reliance on digital resources has blurred traditional distinctions between information organizations, leading to a digital convergence of libraries, archives, and museums, and encouraging more research examining how libraries, archives, and museums can collaborate and combine forces to better serve their users. The topic of the ‘‘digital convergence’’ of libraries, archives, and museums has a lengthy history. Rayward (1998), for example, examined early on how changes from physical to digital media affect the traditional distinctions between information organizations in his article on ‘‘electronic information and the functional integration of libraries,

An introduction to digital convergence: libraries, archives, and museums in the information age

The idea for this special issue arose at the Cultural Heritage Information Professionals (CHIPs) workshop in April 2008. Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Florida State Uni...

Cultivating Personalized Museum Tours Online and On-Site

Web 2.0 — the perceived second generation of the World Wide Web that aims to improve collaboration, sharing of information and interoperability — enables increasing access to digital collections of museums. The expectation is that more and more people will spend time preparing their visit before actually visiting the museum and look for related information reflecting on what they have seen or missed after visiting the museum. It can also be expected that museum curators want to enhance visitors' museum experiences in the more personalized, intensive and engaging way promised by an improved Web. In other words, to keep their visitors, they should adopt an immersive museum environment that combines the museum Web site (online) with the physical museum space (on-site). In this context, the CHIP (Cultural Heritage Information Presentation) project offers tools to the users to be their own curators, e.g. browsing the online collections, planning a personalized museum tour suiting their art interests, getting some recommendations about interesting artworks to see, and quickly finding their ways in the museum. In this paper, we present the new additions to the CHIP tools, which target such functionality: a Web-based museum Tour Wizard based on the user's interests and the Mobile Guide that converts the tours to a mobile device (PDA) used in the physical museum space. To connect the user's various interactions with these tools online and on-site, we built a dynamic user model. Online, the user model stores the user's personal background, ratings of artworks and art concepts, recommended or created museum tours. On-site, it is a conversion of the online user model stored in RDF into XML format which the mobile guide can parse. When the user rates artworks inside the physical museum, the on-site user model is updated and when the tour is finished, it is synchronized with the online user model. In such a way, we support a 'virtuous circle' of the museum visit, which links the personalized museum experiences both online and on-site.

A2o: Access to Archives from the National Archives of Singapore

Sarah Beasley Candice Kail The National Archives of Singapore created a2o (http://www.a2o.com.sg/a2o/public/html/) as a one-stop portal to access cultural and heritage information dating back to th...

An e-culture – e-museums environment for common citizens and disabled individuals

The integration of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) within the cultural domain creates what is commonly known as e-culture. The need to create an e-culture environment arose from the undeniable fact that the cultural heritage of a nation defines it and, therefore, should be disseminated to all, regardless of their location and their disability. This article discusses an e-culture portal, which presents to any interested users, information regarding a significant number of Greek and Cypriot museums and galleries as well as their exhibits. The e-culture environment offers user-friendly navigation techniques and contemporary multimedia tools and services for the better presentation and visualisation of the e-material to the users-visitors, paying particular attention to both common citizens and to disabled individuals, in order to offer them equal access to cultural heritage information. This environment is an inter-disciplinary application, combining the ICTs, cultural and e-inclusion domains (electronic support for disabled people).

An introduction to digital convergence: libraries, archives, and museums in the information age

The idea for this special issue arose at the Cultural Heritage Information Professionals (CHIPs) workshop in April 2008. Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Florida State University, and the Ringling Museum of Art, the workshop’s goals were to explore the ability of educators to meet the information needs of cultural heritage organizations, and to encourage a closer relationship between education and practice in library and information science, museum studies, and archival studies programs. This workshop provided a valuable opportunity for the deans, directors, and faculty of those programs to meet and share ideas with professionals from the nation’s libraries, museums, and archives about the challenges facing information professionals as they work to transcend the traditional boundaries between libraries, archives, and museums, and meet user needs in the information age (for more information about the workshop, including the final workshop report, please see: http://chips.ci.fsu.edu). Based on the outcomes of the CHIPs workshop, the editors of Library Quarterly, Archival Science, and Museum Management and Curatorship agreed to publish three special issues (one for each journal) exploring the shared information needs and challenges facing libraries, archives, and museums in the information age; the overlapping educational goals of library and information science, archival studies, and museum studies programs; and areas of convergence for educators and professionals working to meet user needs in libraries, archives, and museums. This ‘‘special triple issue’’ was driven by the idea that the increased use of and reliance on digital resources has blurred traditional distinctions between information organizations, leading to a digital convergence of libraries, archives, and museums, and encouraging more research examining how libraries, archives, and museums can collaborate and combine forces to better serve their users. The topic of the ‘‘digital convergence’’ of libraries, archives, and museums has a lengthy history. Rayward (1998), for example, examined early on how changes from physical to digital media affect the traditional distinctions between information organizations in his article on ‘‘electronic information and the functional integration of libraries,

Information access to cultural heritage

The workshop on Information Access to Cultural Heritage (IACH 2008) was held during the ECDL conference in Aarhus on the 18th September 2008. The workshop provided a venue to bring together academics carrying out research in the area of information access and practitioners working in the cultural heritage field. The aim was to encourage the exchange of ideas concerning the creation, curation, storage, retrieval and use of cultural heritage information. The day began with a keynote paper by Chris Batt, who looked to the future, challenging the audience to think of uses of technology to make sense of the landscape for users, shifting focus of information access to cultural heritage from search to find . The keynote was followed by a session on the European Digital Library with invited papers by Stefan Gradmann on the infrastructure of Europeana and by Rob Davies on work to develop the content of the Library in the EuropeanaLocal project. The proceedings continued with a series of papers on services being developed to provide access to cultural heritage collections and a wide range of media -- images, text, music and speech. A lively series of poster boasters followed and the day concluded with the poster session and a panel discussion on future directions. Given the attendance at the workshop and the good level of discussion throughout the day, we conclude that Information Access to Cultural Heritage is a growing area of research and promising area for exchange and collaboration between researchers and practitioners.

Cultural Heritage As a Vehicle for Basic Research in Computing Science: Pasteur's Quadrant and a Use‐Inspired Basic Research Agenda

Abstract Donald Stokes argued [Sto97] that for 50 years from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 20th century, there was an unhealthy taxonomy of research types which was formulated on a linear scale from pure to applied. The argument goes that the best research is only possible in environments which are free from contemplation of the potential uses to which results might be applied. In this paper, current research challenges in the application of ICTs to cultural heritage information are reviewed in order to consider where these applications‐linked needs require solutions that will advance the understanding of computational principles and help to develop new basic understanding in computer science, including shape manipulation and other aspects of importance in computer graphics and virtual environments. The paper draws extensively on the recently published EPOCH research agenda [AG07] for illustrations of the types of research which are required for the Cultural Heritage sector and the relationship between these and basic research challenges in Computing Science.

Building a Life Story: Providing Records and Support to Former Residents of Children's Homes

Approximately 500,000 children were institutionalised in Australian orphanages and other forms of children's Homes over the course of the 20th century. However, growing up in care is not just a part of childhood; it can have ongoing impact across a person's life. Access to records can be a very important way in which people who grew up in institutional care construct the story of their lives, contributing to their self-identity, and also find out practical information, such as their exact date of birth and medical history. The present article takes as its starting point a recommendation of the third of the Australian Government reports concerned with the institutionalisation of Australian children—Forgotten Australians—and draws on interviews with former residents of children's Homes aged between 42 and 76 years to examine their access to records in Australia. We discuss a case study, the unique Heritage Information Service at MacKillop Family Services, which supports former residents to access their records, and consider the implications for good practice of agencies working in this area.

Establishing the national digital cultural heritage repository in Malaysia

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to uncover the perceptions of information professionals with regards to the establishment of a National Digital Cultural Heritage Repository Center (NDCHR) in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a modified Delphi study to identify the factors that contribute towards the establishment of an NDCHR in Malaysia. A three‐round modified Delphi study was used in this study to obtain consensus among the experts with regards to the factors that contribute towards the establishment of the central repository.FindingsThe establishment of an NDCHR requires collaboration efforts among the different types of cultural institution in Malaysia. The aspiration of the establishment to improve accessibility, resource discovery, preservation and promotion of the nation's cultural heritage information would contribute toward restructuring some common grounds and thinking among the different types of cultural institutions with respect to effective approaches to managing and organising the nation's digital cultural heritage information.Practical implicationsFindings and discovery of the study are significant in providing a general framework to establish an NDCHR in MalaysiaOriginality/valueThe outcome of the study will contribute toward the establishment of a central repository for digital cultural heritage information in Malaysia.

ENGLISH

Nowadays, the majority of the people find out the required websites information including virtual exhibitions through web search engines. The most commonly used search engines in the market are Google, Yahoo and MSN. This paper basically provides tips to the developers of virtual exhibition websites to make their sites more visible to the public. This is one of the marketing strategies of the web search engines are following to get best returns on their investment. This is a short paper based on the research work done at Canadian Heritage Information Network and their results are communicated in form of short paper. DOI: 10.14429/djlit.28.4.200

Incorporating cognitive/learning styles in a general-purpose adaptive hypermedia system

Natalia Stash received her PhD from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), The Netherlands. The title of her thesis is "Incorporating Cognitive/Learning Styles in a General-Purpose Adaptive Hypermedia System". She currently participates in the CHIP project (Cultural Heritage Information Personalization) located at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Her research interests include adaptive web-based systems, semantic web technologies, learning styles, e-culture applications.

A web information system for the management and the dissemination of Cultural Heritage data

Safeguarding and exploiting Cultural Heritage induce the production of numerous and heterogeneous data. The management of these data is an essential task for the use and the diffusion of the information gathered on the field. Previously, the data handling was a hand-made task done thanks to efficient and experienced methods. Until the growth of computer science, other methods have been carried out for the digital preservation and treatment of Cultural Heritage information. The development of computerized data management systems to store and make use of archaeological datasets is then a significant task nowadays. Especially for sites that have been excavated and worked without computerized means, it is now necessary to put all the data produced onto computer. This allows preservation of the information digitally (in addition with the paper documents) and offers new exploitation possibilities, like the immediate connection of different kinds of data for analyses, or the digital documentation of the site for its improvement. Geographical Information Systems have proved their potentialities in this scope, but they are not always adapted to the management of features at the scale of a particular archaeological site. Therefore this paper aims to present the development of a Virtual Research Environment dedicated to the exploitation of intra-site Cultural Heritage data. The Information System produced is based on open-source software modules dedicated to the Internet, so users can avoid being software driven and can register and consult data from different computers. The system gives the opportunity to do exploratory analyses of the data, especially at spatial and temporal levels. The system is compliant to every kind of Cultural Heritage site and allows management of diverse types of data. Some experimentation has been done on sites managed by the Service of the National Sites and Monuments of Luxembourg.

Karyological diagnosis of Cebus (Primates, Platyrrhini) in captivity: Detection of hybrids and management program applications

Genetic data are very important for conservation programs in wild population as well as in captive conditions. Primates in zoos or breeding centers are often maintained in groups without geographic origin or genetic heritage information. These lead to the incorrect assignment of species and introduce an artificial reproductive barrier, which in turn constitutes inadequate management of the colonies. A karyological analysis of specimens from a Primate Reproduction Center, considered as Cebus apella (Platyrrhini), was performed. Cell cultures were conducted from peripheral blood samples following standard cytogenetic methods. A fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) procedure was applied in mitotic metaphases using two probes: A specific probe of the extracentromeric heterochromatin (He+) of Cebus, and a human chromosome 21 probe. The latter was chosen due to the known homeology with the euchromatic region limiting with 11qHe+ of Cebus. The species status was determined for at least half of the animals and identified a hybrid specimen using this combined FISH protocol. This procedure is an accurate diagnostic methodology for taxonomic determinations and, therefore can be used for management of reproduction in colonies.

Ｗｅｂ ＧＩＳを用いた情報サービスの住民の選好の評価に関するコンジョイント分析の適用可能性

It is realistic to build GIS application systems step by step in many local governments. For that purpose, local governments have to decide the order of priority. This paper examines the adaptability of conjoint analysis to evaluate residents' preferences for some information services with Web GIS. Trial profiles were composed of monthly fee and three kinds of information services, which are road information service, historic heritage information service and child-care information service. This paper examines respondents' ability of ranking eight profiles with the three information services, pricing profiles properly, suitability of conjoint analysis in comparison of Contingent Valuation Method and the difference of the preferences among respondents.

Staying in Tune: Traditions and Musical Instruments of the Francophonie

Staying in Tune: Traditions and Musical Instruments of the Francophonie. An online exhibition of the Canadian Heritage Information Network and the Virtual Museum of Canada.SUNNIFASS

Building Interoperability for United Kingdom Historic Environment Information Resources

The paper will present the work of the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage (FISH) – www.fish-forum.info – in the development of standards and protocols to support interoperability between historic environment sector information systems. The paper describes barriers to interoperability within the sector. These originate in the unique character of the historic environment as an information source. Progress in the development of relevant standards is reviewed and emphasis placed upon community building to support standardisation. Current work to develop an XML-based interoperability ‘toolkit’ of schema and protocols to support knowledge-sharing networks is described. This will be based on current FISH standards along with the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, an emerging ISO standard ontology for cultural heritage information.

Best practices in creating quality online experiences for museum users

The Canadian Heritage Information Network commissioned a research study on quality in online experiences in order to ensure that the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), launched in 2001 to provide a strong online presence for Canadian museums, retains some consistency through its content and interface. The research goals were to determine what factors define ‘quality’ in online museum projects and how to measure this quality through a thorough analysis of existing online museum products in the VMC portal. This article focuses on how development teams attempted to engage users of eight VMC products. The 2002 statistics for these products indicated higher user engagement. Interviews with project managers and multimedia developers explored successes and challenges in developing products, and potential best practices for producing quality in online experiences for VMC users. Five factors frame the discussion of findings. Expectations for user engagement, as well as objectives, outcomes, and success indicators were important factors at the outset of the project. Critical factors during and after Web site development included the needs of intended and other interested audiences, and opportunities for reflection and evaluation following the launch of the product. Finally, building an exhibit that meets partners' interests and changing needs contributes to a project's lasting impact.

Communicating Respectfully With American Indian and Alaska Natives: Lessons from the California Health Interview Survey

Background. California is home to the largest number of American Indians in the United States, including large numbers of residents who are from tribes outside of the state, in addition to Alaska Natives. In 2000 to 2001, the California Health Interview Survey randomly surveyed, by telephone, approximately 54,122 households throughout the state, focusing on public health and access to health care. Methods. American Indian and Alaska Native cultural competency training materials were developed for the data collection interviewers. Unique cultural and linguistic issues identified were (1) reservation dialect English, (2) the long pause, (3) slow speaking, (4) "walking on words," and (5) a brief review of the importance of collecting tribal heritage information. Conclusions. Since the successful implementation of the competency training, several researchers, practitioners, state agencies, and others have requested and implemented the training materials in their work. In this article, we review the training materials. We hope that these few tips will help others have successful experiences communicating respectfully with American Indian and Alaska Natives.