Semantic Web, Web Services and Museums: Mapping the Road to Implementation John Perkins “MESMUSES Workshop” Florence, June 16-17, 2003

The Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information Solutions to digital information management, access, and use through standards and international collaboration Training & education for professional capacity building

Outline Strategic perspective –Useful for Semantic Web research but not limited to it Illustrative examples –Open Archives Initiative (OAI-PMH) –ABC Ontology and Model

Barrier Issues to Open Access to Information LawTechnology Norms Market Open Information Adapted from Lessig, L. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Basic Books, 1999 and Tom Moritz, American Museum of Natural History, March, 2003

Museum constraints on open access to information ©, IPR, DRM Standards, Technology Interoperability Business models, Organizational capability Semantic Web Audience, Applications,Services

Some Strategic Responses

Audiences, Services, Applications What do we need to know about public need for designing services to appeal to the widest possible audience? What services are needed? What’s needed to support services?

Audience Collect& expose User Studies Needs and Evaluations Develop frameworks, metrics and tools Mine across studies Non-Users “option values” Cultural Content Forum & Handscape

Services Mental models of services –Library, exhibition, exploration Hybrid Spaces Mediated Experience

BeforeDuringAfter Networked server channeled to devices Orientation Registration Background Engagement Information Context Experience Engagement Reflection Analysis Extension Engagement Adapted from CIMI Handscape Project and Robert Semper, Exploratorium, March 2003 “Sharing Information” Digital Device Paradigm

Applications Applications & interfaces for both the production and delivery of services Personalization Communications Sense-making

Law Copyright, Fair use, public access, first sale Privacy Digital Rights Management

Digital solutions are driven by commercial purveyors of multimedia content Middleware for authentication, authorization, tracking

Technology High-level frameworks Interoperability Persistent, Recombinant Digital Repositories

High-level Frameworks -IMS

Interoperability Is about providing services people want Based on “recombinant potential” –Bringing together and combining –Deconstructing resources

Recombinant Potential Can I… –Add to a repository –Extract from a repository –Fuse metadata from different sources –Embed an interactive service in an exhibition –Navigate various databases –cite a resource and link to it –Assemble resources into a new package –…etc

Recombinant Repositories Persistent open digital object repository Subject portal or online catalog Alerting service Image or other format- based service LMS authoring tools Format/collection specific presentation tools Educ. discovery service Higher level services? Adapted from Dan Greenstein, CDL, IMLS Workshop Presentation, March 2003

Persistent Open Digital Repositories Need.. Service models Metadata models Content package models Ontologies Tools/Infrastructure

Business Models & Organizational Capability Organizational capability Paying for it Management support

Capability Needs Standards & Good Practice Content Management Resources

Drawing it all together Multiplicity of effort Community efforts to lead & serve –Horizon scanning –Research –Capacity Building Prototype critical path components

Semantic Web Building Blocks after W3C HTTP XML/HTML RDF Ontologies Communities of Trust

Tactical Examples Open Archives Initiative (OAI) ABC Ontology & Model “Dot” Museum - Top Level Domain

Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Harvesting of Metadata Generic protocol enables a service Bindable to multiple protocols Currently HTTP SOAP enabled SOAP specification in development – y.htmlhttp:// y.html

ABC Ontology & Model Harmony, CIMI, CIDOC Goals –Conceptual basis for analyzing ontologies –Guidance in developing ontologies –Conceptual basis for mapping ontologies Has basic entities common to many ontologies –IFLA’s FRBR, INDECS, DC, CIDOC/CRM

ABC Ontology & Model Core intention is to model the creation, evolution and transition of objects over time Development of a Query model RDF for concrete syntax SQUISH search engine

ABC Ontology & Model Document at: – agoze/

Dot Museum Internet Top Level Domain Forum for community of trust

CIMI Consortium