1. Dr Paul Miller Interoperability Focus p.miller@ukoln.ac.ukwww.ukoln.ac.uk/ Delivering Heritage to the People — a UK perspective

2. See www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/ We are here…

3. What is Nordic Heritage ?

4. 

5. Nordic Heritage is… Physical Tangible Enriching Inclusive National For us Finite Valuable Digital Ephemeral Uncomfortable Divisive International For our children Ever-expanding Expensive

6. Nordic Heritage is…

7. Valuing Culture…? Cultural memory, which is documented in the collections of museums, libraries and archives throughout the world, is a vital part of the human endeavour. It represents the knowledge accumulated through the generations, and enables humanity to build on the achievements of those who have gone before us. Cultural memory: Benefits individuals, by promoting a sense of identity through shared cultural values and by supporting the quest for lifelong learning; Benefits communities, by promoting economic prosperity and fostering the understanding that leads to a civil and just society; and Benefits humanity as a whole, by promoting the values we share as global citizens and by increasing our capacity to connect with one another to meet universal challenges. Museums, libraries and archives—often called memory institutions—are trusted organizations that collectively document the entire range of human experience and expression. Memory institutions are engaged in the important work of: Capturing, authenticating, and making sense of cultural memory; Preserving the human record for future generations; and Sharing knowledge to support education and learning. See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/ccs/positions/ “ ”

8. Trustees of the Heritage

9. Memory Institutions Museums & Galleries, Libraries, Archives… Hold the memory of the Nation in trust Actively interpret (Usually) under sell themselves Possibly perpetuate organisational structures irrelevant to the user Offer a ‘human’ side of Government ?

10. Some facts In the UK, more people visit museums than go to theme parks and pop concerts Visiting libraries is more popular than going to the cinema There are over 4,000 public library branches in the UK The vast majority will be connected to the ‘Peoples Network’ by 2003 70% already are.

11. Moving Online

12. Culture Online Placed online, large parts of our Culture can become: available to the Nation/Continent/World, 24/7 accessible ‘democratised’, and available equally to the inhabitants of Reykjavik, and of a small village on the Outer Hebrides a powerful advert for Europe comparable to similar resources from elsewhere viable as enablers and facilitators of Learning, both formal and lifelong.

13. Some assumptions Having access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage material is ‘useful’ and desirable The public sector has a role to play in this, beyond simply granting digitisation rights to Microsoft Availability of regional/national/international corpora of material is more useful to the user than hundreds or thousands of individual sites Metadata is key to making the vision reality.

14. What is Metadata?

15. What is ‘Metadata’? –meaningless jargon –or a fashionable, and terribly misused, term for what we’ve always done –or “a means of turning data into information” –and “data about data” –and the name of a person (‘Leif Eriksson’) –and the title of a book (‘Njal’s Saga’).

16. What is ‘Metadata’? Metadata may be applied to almost anything; People Places Objects Concepts Web pages Databases.

17. What is ‘Metadata’? Resource Discovery Metadata fulfils three main functions; Description of resource content –“What is it?” Description of resource form –“How is it constructed?” Description of resource use –“Can I afford it?”.

18. ‘Metadata’ is Cataloguing made cool But still a bit geeky? An important driver for the information economy ? A panacea in the battle against information overload ? Potentially useful as an affordable and cost–effective means of unlocking a wealth of resources ?.

19. Some assumptions Having access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage material is ‘useful’ and desirable The public sector has a role to play in this, beyond simply granting digitisation rights to Microsoft Availability of regional/national/international corpora of material is more useful to the user than hundreds or thousands of individual sites Metadata is key to making the vision reality.

20. Some more assumptions Distribution is better than centralisation Portals are good Thick portals are better A single portal is bad Shared middleware services play a key role The problem is bigger than the UK or Europe.

21. Internationalisation

22. Level 7 An activity in need of a name! Organised with support from CIMI and Resource Recognised growing synergies between content creation activities globally Gathered funders and programme managers in London Reported in issue 5 of Cultivate Interactive. See www.cultivate-int.org/issue5/

23. The Cultural Content Forum ! Met in Washington in March around 40 representatives from Europe, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan Clear interest in a user focus new work item to gather and explore existing user evaluation work, in order to develop a better picture of what users want Reported in issue 7 of Cultivate Interactive. See www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/washington/

24. Standardisation

25. Common Standards Commonality of approach enables interoperability, and facilitates access. Good standardisation is a foundation for good service, not a straitjacket to innovation Increasing moves towards common standards and guidelines NOF-digi JISC Canadian Cultural Content Initiative e-GIF RLG Cultural Materials Initiative NINCH G2GP etc.

26. Common Standards Work underway to standardise/harmonise Resource capture/creation Resource description Resource discovery Resource use Resource reuse Resource preservation etc Best/Good Practice and Community Building as important… if not more…

27. Metadata for Education Metadata for Education Group (MEG) open forum for debating the description and provision of educational resources at all educational levels across the United Kingdom Founded upon a set of fundamental principles enshrined in the MEG Concord intends to establish itself as an authority in the application of descriptive metadata to predominantly UK educational resources seeks to become the first point of call for policy questions. See www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/

28. The MEG Concord

29. See www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/documents/ concord.html

30. Discovering Content

31. Web Content (local and remote) End-user Many different services Each has own user interface Each has a learning curve The current picture Slide by Andy Powell of UKOLN

32. Towards an Architecture Need for contextualisation What are people doing And what are the best technologies to help them? How can we move towards the appearance of seamless service? No one-fit solution. See www.dner.ac.uk/arch/

33. Towards an architecture Search Z39.50 and the Bath Profile Harvest OAI Alert RSS Shared Middleware Services Authenticate, Authorise, Collection Description, User Preference, Institutional Preference… See www.dner.ac.uk/arch/ Dublin Core

34. JISC’s Information Environment Broker/Aggregator Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc Service Desc Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer Slide by Andy Powell of UKOLN

35. publishing tools shared services portals content brokers and aggregators Architectural summary provision fusioninfrastructure presentation registries terminology indexing resolution authentication authorisation citation linking m2m Slide by Andy Powell of UKOLN

36. Building the IE Construction of various Portals in the Presentation Layer ‘JISC Portal’ ? Data Centre Portals (EDINA, MIMAS…) Subject Portals (the RDN, ADS, etc.) Data Type Portals (images, movies, sound…) Institutional Portals Personal Portals (Paul’s web!) Also providing other access to discrete resources. See www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/

37. National or Local? JISC building various national services, including portals Institutions also building portals, Managed/Virtual Learning Environments, myLibrary services, etc. Where do we see the role for all? need to escape from e-, and reach u-.

38. See www.rdn.ac.uk/

39. See digital.hull.ac.uk/

40. See www.cultureonline.gov.uk/

41. Culture Online Announced September 2000 “ Culture Online’s remit would be to use digital technologies to widen access to the resources of the arts and cultural sector, for the purposes of learning and enjoyment both at school and throughout life.” Building directly upon NOF, and the lessons it teaches Call closes today for initial expressions of interest. See www.cultureonline.gov.uk/

42. See www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/

43. Curriculum Online “The vision for Curriculum Online is to give teachers easy online access to a wide range of digital learning materials, which they can use to support their teaching across the curriculum. These materials will form a consistent, coherent and comprehensive educational service for teachers and pupils. ” £50,000,000 investment in content and services for first year Schools have ‘learning credits’, to purchase content Portal launches in September. See www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/

44. ‘Networks’ for Cultural Content

45. See www.rcahms.gov.uk/

46. See ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/

47. See www.scran.ac.uk/

48. See ads.ahds.ac.uk/heirport/

49. Reaching the Citizen…

50. Government “to make the UK the best environment in the world for e-commerce by 2002 to ensure that everyone who wants it has access to the internet by 2005 to make all government services available electronically by 2005” Focus upon services Focus upon the citizen Focus upon the Joined Up approach Recognition of multi–channel architecture ? See www.e-envoy.gov.uk/publications/int_comparisons.htm

51. From Project Plan for the Development of e-commerce and e-government 2000-2002

52. Focus on services Deliver services to the citizen Services rather than resources –‘transactional’ web sites Not just about finding documents on a web site Change of address service; –https://www.addressingthechange.com –www.ihavemoved.com/ –www.simplymove.co.uk/. See www.gateway.gov.uk/

53. Focus on the Citizen Move away from the ‘silo mentality’ Citizens need/want access to information/services/resources –These exist in different parts of local and national government, organised according to internal needs or procedures, and packaged according to particular house styles and conventions –None of which helps the citizen who just wants a new wheely bin (a.k.a ‘Garbage can’/ ‘trash can’/ ‘dumpster’ ?) See www.ukonline.gov.uk/

55. Recognise a multi– channel future The web is not the only game in town… Mobile phones/ WAP/ 3G PDAs Digital TV Telephone call centres One stop shop drop–in centres High street information kiosks The Post Office Banks Traditional access mechanisms So… create content once for largely automated repackaging and repurposing XML Schema/ XSL, etc….

56. The e–GIF e–Government Interoperability Framework Technical standards and policies at the heart of e–Government Conformance is mandatory across the Public Sector Adoption of Internet and Web standards across government XML/XSL, plus government–specific schemas Change of Address service, for example, utilises XML Schemas to pass details between participants. See www.govtalk.gov.uk/

57. The e–GIF e–Government Interoperability Framework Version 4 released in April Incorporates Metadata Framework (Dublin Core), the UK Government Metadata Element Set, and the Government Category List Under consideration for EC/ EU use. See www.govtalk.gov.uk/

58. Generalising a model…

59. A premise We want to provide useful services to our users. These should be –Usable –Functional –Fit-for-purpose –yet cool and attractive –Sustainable –Interoperable And could be –Informational –Transactional Technical standards are the dull but necessary reality for making this happen.

60. In search of solutions… A common approach Mandated as a condition of grant? –nof–digi technical standards and guidelines –Although evidence of voluntary adoption… –DNER Learning & Teaching Programme technical guidelines –Canadian Digital Cultural Content Initiative technical guidelines –e–GIF An open approach –Avoidance of proprietary solutions –Based on emerging or established standards –XML based. Mappable to Dublin Core….

61. A consensus–based approach Need community adoption and understanding Data creators and providers need a sense of ownership An evolutionary approach Channels New standards New user requirements Remember preservation. In search of solutions…

62. An architecture Integrated information environment is complex An overarching architecture helps to place individual features in context –searching –harvesting –alerting –Shared middleware –Common identifiers, etc. See www.dner.ac.uk/architecture/

63. Part of a model Placing detailed descriptions of all cultural artefacts online infeasible? Expensive A big job! Leads to information overload Collection Level Description a way forward Pointers into collections Easier to harmonise across domains Achievable. See www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/

64. The Big Issue(s) Language Whether ‘technical’ or vernacular Terminological control Shared subject terms Certification/ Authenticity How do I know it’s an authoritative description of the Mona Lisa ? Infrastructure How to enable cross–search? Meeting the requirements of new users Largely let down by our current offerings. See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue29/miller/

65. Conclusions

66. The Heritage matters a digitised Heritage may be exploited in new ways, by new and old markets Effective exploitation requires Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus building shared vision new ways of working institutional and organisational change –is ‘library’ a meaningful concept to the learner? –is ‘museum’? an interoperable technical base We need to be responsive to the needs of our users cultural tourist, student, lifelong learner, professional….

67. Dr Paul Miller Interoperability Focus p.miller@ukoln.ac.ukwww.ukoln.ac.uk/ Delivering Heritage to the People — a UK perspective