Michael Middleton and Julie M. Lee, Cultural Institutions and Web 2.0, in Proceedings Fourth Seminar on Research Applications in Information and Library Studies (RAILS 4), RMIT University, Melbourne, November 2007.
Abstract: The document reports upon an exploratory survey of the approaches that Australian cultural institutions are implementing to meet Web 2.0 challenges. It is given context by a review that is made of Web developments in order to characterize Web 2.0 applications. A sample of applications that have been undertaken internationally and locally are described under the headings ranging from business resources through to exhibitions, professional development and youth outreach in order to explore strategies for implementation. The applications serve to introduce business and technical issues that have arisen, including those involved in forming partnerships with peer institutions and with major Internet services. A discussion section follows in which challenges and opportunities relating to management and software support are identified under the headings: Access, Audiences, Authority, Collaboration, Current Awareness, Metadata, Policy, Publishing, Records retention, Rich Web applications, Seeding, Skills and Statistics. These are seen as common to those convergent areas of application where large repositories are endeavouring to enhance the digital access to their records and information artefacts, and engage patrons further. Each area represents a prospective domain of investigation for research institutions or the cultural institutions themselves. A conclusion summarises these findings with respect to the role that cultural institutions can play in improving access to and involvement with the cultural heritage.
From the body of the report:
...Cultural institutions have the opportunity to foster Web 2.0 applications by improving access to their resources by:
Developments in access or resource unification. These may be achieved by standardizing search protocols across databases, or by grouping or clustering intermediate metadata for distributed databases.
Seeding of non-repository systems such as online encyclopedias to provide links into their own databases.
Contributing to integrated use of resources through distributed databases or mashups that add value to the databases.
Dissemination of information through facilities provided and maintained by an organization such as podcasts, blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds....
Internet sites that have attracted major use – what Dempsey (Dempsey, 2006, July) terms ‘gravitational pull’ - have effectively catered for seamless discovery of accumulated information resources. This may be whether the resources are file types as provided for by services like Google or Yahoo, or predominantly physical materials as is the case with Amazon. These services have led users to higher expectations of accessibility....
This access has been extended further within a European model ("MICHAEL - Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe," 2007) initially a partnership between France, Italy and the UK, but with European Commission funding being extended to a further 11 European countries. In addition to subject entry points there are entry points by audience, time period and spatially to allow its users to search, browse and examine descriptions of resources held in institutions [Figure 3]. There is a focus on interoperability between national cultural portals to promote access to digital content from museums, libraries and archives....
Cultural institutions may well be required to play a much greater role in the organization of data that supports e-science or cyberinfrastructure. There is a growing awareness of the worth of data sets in scientific research areas, and the need to manage them for effective re-utilization and persistent availability. With respect to scholarly communication in general, Lynch (Lynch, 2007) has pointed out that there are social and political factors moving us towards open access and the development of technical and social models to assure the persistence and integrity of important digital data over time, or as he sees e-science ‘the investment it represents can be amplified by disclosure, curation and facilitation of reuse’....
[Summary of the discussion of access:] Improvements in access will depend upon improving retrieval capabilities in repository software by applying ranking and relevance feedback capabilities, or using markup metadata to report contents of repositories into search engines that provide such facilities. Allied with this, must be rationalization of descriptive metadata to permit unification of different types of information repositories....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/03/2008 04:37:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
