Papers 1Open technologyChair: Jim Michalko (Vice President, RLG Programs, USA) ---------------------------------------------------------- In this session, there will be four speakers: The Capitoline Museums Speaker: Klaus E. Werner
Special attention will be given to the following technical solutions:
- the use of XML as exclusive document and data format or, where this isn't not possible (binary files), at least as metadata format (DocBook/TEI for text documents, museum records in XML/RelaxNG dialect, tabular data in ad-hoc developed XML schemata, image metadata in XMP, geographical references and GE output in KML etc.);
- the definition of object references as URNs, normally inside an XLink expression;
- the use of universal XML repositories for all types of information resources (document / data / meta data);
- the use of XQuery for building contextual relationships across all resources and repositories, including remote repositories;
- a low-level developer API with RSS feeds as response.
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Speaker: Bram Wiercx
Pilot CollectiveAccess & Cloud hosting: how to set up a company independent collection management – and digitization project
In Flanders runs, in the course of 2009, a pilot project with ten heritage organisations (museums, archives, etc.) around the testing of CollectiveAccess, a open source collections management and online access application for museums, archives and digitalcollections. The package will be tested on a Amazon cloud (EC2 & S3). The goal is to verify if this infrastructure is a cost-effective / ecological solution for the unlocking of collections.
The heritage organisations shall test this collections management system in different steps. One of the goals is to examine whether this package complies to the needs of the different organisations. FARO, the Flemish interface for cultural heritage, shall support the organisations by means of workshops and a online community. The aim of this presentation is to reveal the results of the pilot project and at the same time give some strategic advice to heritage organisations and professionals planning to set up company independent collection management – and digitization projects.
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 Bram (1979) is an information manager who worked from 2003-2007 for Jnet where he was hosting manager. Bram is founder (1998 and 2003) of two non-profit hosting companies. From 2007 onwards he works as information manager at FARO, Flemish interface centre for cultural heritage, mainly working on open technology, digital heritage and information management. For several years Bram advises organizations with internet projects.
Case 1:
Speaker: Arie Altena
V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media exists since 1981, and has since the beginning documented its own events (performances,
exhibitions, lectures) in the field of electronic media and new media art. Since the end of the 1990s most of this material is digital born. Like many other cultural institutes V2_ used to announce their events and news at the public relation website (www.v2.nl) whereas documentation of past events and projects could be found at the archive website (archive.v2.nl). They were actually two
distinct views on sometimes identical data. The life cycle of V2_ online information starts with a public announcement of activities. Before and during the period an activity lasts, most of information regarding it is to be found on PR-website-pages. Once the activity is over, archivists compiled and edited the
information generated during the activity together with the existing information at the PR website. Before publishing the final result at the archive, semantic relations were created between the new data and the existing archive information leading to an informed database or network of related information. This strategy has been successful at keeping the PR website appealing to the general
public while at the same time developing an archive relevant to the professional community. Yet during the first stages of development of new archival software at V2_ it became clear, that although the two sites served well their goals, the distinction introduced unnecessary divisions. The process of documenting and archiving information rather than enriching the present tends to impoverish the data, since the past information is actually removed from the PR website Present and upcoming activities are decontextualized. The archive loses its vitality, and does not develop into the desired 'living archive'.
This paper traces a very simple idea: the merging of of a PR-website and archive, or in other words, taking the PR-website as a place where archiving starts, and as archiving. It looks at reasons for the merging, at the opportunities and problems created, considering also such practical aspects like the creation of amongst others metadata (user-tags) by non-archivist, inclusion of visitor-feedback,
creation of content of variable quality, and persistent URLs. An important focus – since the paper deals with software in development – is the role of the methodology of agile development.
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 Arie Altena works as an archivist at V2_. His writings on new media, art, internet-culture, literature and media-theory are published invarious magazines.
Rui Guerra is software developer at V2_ and is involved in open source cultur. He is also an artist and besides teaching at several academies in The Netherlands, he has initiated self-organized communities such as INTK in Utrecht and unDEAF in Rotterdam.
Altena and Guerra work on the development of an open source archival module for the V2_website and digital archive.
Case 2:
Speaker: Henk Vanstappen
Since 2008, the NAI uses its Collection Information System (CIS) to register and manage its library, archive and object collection. Metadata from both analogue and digital objects are stored in this system. Digital objects themselves are stored in a digital repository (eDepot), which manages preservation of the objects and necessary preservation data. A public access module (ArchiVista) will be
implemented early 2010. As the NAi acquires digital born documents from architects in different proprietary formats, the question rises as to how these
documents can be preserved and presented to the public.
In this presentation, we will present 7 steps, from the architect's desktop to the user's browser, in which all necessary actions are taken to preserve and present the objects:
_ the architect's desktop (how is the object created, to what use, ...)
_ the acquisition process (when, how and why are digital archives acquired by the NAi)
_ preservation: the storage of the object as a bitstream
_ selection: (which documents should be kept, and on which preservation level)
_ the registration of a document in the CIS: adding metadata in accordance to data content standards
_ migration of proprietary formats to open formats (how to deal with proprietary and/or obsolete operating systems, software and
formats)
_ presentation: how can the objects be presented (which formats to use in a browser, which formats preserve intellectual content,
how to deal with intellectual property issues)
In each of these steps, metadata are added and the digital object may be changed in function of its further use. As a consequence and in contrast to analogue archives, the 'original' object cannot be shown to the user.
The eDepot and ArchiVista projects aim to develop best practices in registration, preservation and presentation of digital 3D objects. The presentation will focus on these best practices and demonstrate how choices for preservation formats affect the presentation of the objects in a browser, and how this may change the user's experience.
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Jim provides the leadership, vision and operational direction for the RLG Partnership within OCLC Research and manages the California Research office. Prior to joining OCLC in 2006, Jim was President and CEO of the Research Libraries Group (RLG), a global, not-for-profit membership corporation and information service provider. In this role for 16 years he responded to the needs of research institutions and represented the intersection of libraries, museums and archives in professional forums and conferences. RLG combined with OCLC Research to create the leading venue for applied research, community building and prototyping of future systems and services in support of the research information community. Before directing RLG, Jim held positions in private industry (medical technology, merger and acquisition analysis), the University of Chicago libraries and the University of Pennsylvania libraries. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago (MBA and MLS) and was an undergraduate at Georgetown University (BA). 
Klaus E. Werner is a specialist in xml database technology for all kinds of data and documents for libraries and museums. Since 2004 Klaus is information manager for the Capitoline Museums. Klaus holds a doctorate in classical archaeology.
Henk Vanstappen is coordinator of the eProjects team in the Netherlands Architecture Institute. At this institute Henk is in charge of automation and digitization projects. As project manager, Henk has extenvise experience in in the cultural heritage sector notably museums, archives and libraries. Henk has published on topics regarding digital repositories, metadata standards and digitization.
