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Providing Accessible Online Collections
Rachael Rainbow, Alex Morrison, Cogapp, UK; Matt Morgan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections
Using an RDF Data Pipeline to Implement Cross-Collection Search
David Henry and Eric Brown, Missouri History Museum, USA
Abstract
This paper presents an approach to transforming data from many diverse sources in support of a semantic cross-collection search application. It describes the vision and goals for a semantic cross-collection search and examines the challenges of supporting search of that kind using very diverse data sources. The paper makes the case for supporting semantic cross-collection search using semantic web technologies and standards including Resource Descriptive Framework (RDF), SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL ), and an XML mapping language. The Missouri History Museum has developed a prototype method for transforming diverse data sources into a data repository and search index that can support a semantic cross-collection search. The method presented in this paper is a data pipeline that transforms diverse data into localized RDF; then transforms the localized RDF into more generalized RDF graphs using common vocabularies; and ultimately transforms generalized RDF graphs into a Solr search index to support a semantic cross-collection search. Limitations and challenges of this approach are detailed in the paper.
Providing accessible online collections
Feedback from user research for the recently re-launched Metropolitan Museum of Art website made it clear that users need multiple routes into the collections. Visitors want to search across data, on multiple dimensions, and find other artworks that may interest them.
Scholarly Information Seeking Behaviour in the British Museum Online Collection
The vast amounts of digital museum resources available to support scholarship are changing the ways researchers work, offering convenient quick access to a wide selection of cultural heritage content. However, finding information in museums, as well as libraries and archives, is not an easy task. Collections database information systems can be overwhelming and daunting to many users.
