“Multimedia For All, the Conveyor initiative” 

In this talk, the Conveyor team will introduce us to “Conveyor”, a simple-to-use multimedia authoring system for use by museum staff with no computer programming skills, which has been developed with the help of the European Community ‘Culture 2000’ grant, in partnership with other five European countries. 

This talk sets out the background to the initiative, the liaison undertaken with European partners during the production of version 2, work authored in the new system and feedback received from users. 

FREE WORKSHOPS (26 and 27 May)

Attendees will have the opportunity to speak with the technical gurus behind the system and to book into a training sessions to be staged on 26 and 27 May. 

For more information or to book a place, sign-up on Upcoming or call Val at: 01273 206306.

Many thanks to those of you who attended the talk about eHive at the recent meeting of Culture Geeks.  Please find following responses to queries raised during the talk.  If you have any more questions, or anything else you would like to discuss relating to eHive, feel free to contact me on the number or email address below.

eHive is currently at the stage of its first beta release so we’ve initially concentrated on the basics, with many more planned functions to be added later.  Many of the questions that were raised relate to functions that are planned for future releases.

QUESTIONS:
1.     Is it possible to extract information from a Community website (e.g. www.nzmuseums.co.nz) to another site?  i.e. information relating to Te Reo/Maori language extracted from NZ Museums to another site about languages?
Not at present. This would need to be a new community that would have a subset of the NZMuseums content (plus optionally other objects that are not in the NZMuseums community). We plan to build XML feeds later this year for common subsets of content that will make sharing the content on other sites easier.

2.     Have you any plans to develop/include a tool that allows you to calculate how much time is taken by the account holder in removing malicious/inappropriate public tags?
Not at this stage. The number of malicious/inappropriate tags has been almost zero in the first six months (3 tags removed and 1,000 added).

3.     Will it be possible to tag specific parts of an image/picture on the site?
This is not planned at present.

4. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has curator assigned tags on objects that public cannot remove, as well as public assigned ones using colour coding.  Is this something you may consider?
We are planning to extend the administration of record tags. Possible flags against a tag may include options such as inappropriate, protected (cannot be removed by public), or foreign language.

5.     Is there any way you can export the public tags and comments back into your existing cms?
All data can be exported in XML format. CMS software with functionality to import from XML files can import the tags back into their database.

6.     How do the public data entry screens work in relation to the other data entry screens on eHive?
The public screens show a subset of all of the available fields. Filling in information in the Detail or Core field tabs will automatically show up in the relevant Public fields. E.g. If Name/Title is filled in on the Core tab it will also be visible on the Public tab.
We provide the Brief Description field for private description information and Web/Public Description for public description information. A wide variety of private fields are provided. E.g. If the object had an association with a past event or person which was not available to the public then this could be recorded in fields such as the Comments/Remarks field.

7.     The Maker/Artist name appeared to be free text not authority controlled.  Is there any plan to make this authority controlled?
Creator/Maker is authority assisted at present. If you start typing it will automatically offer you a popup of all previous entries starting with that text and you can narrow down the selection by continuing to type. A full related person screen is planned.

8.     Is it possible to instigate colour coding of required fields to make it clearer to volunteers or data inputters exactly where their site wants them to enter data?
We have considered having required fields set per account and visually indicating these on the cataloguing screens.

9.     Is it possible to make standard pick lists of terms available to other users to use for their own accounts?  i.e. in the context of a number of different eHive accounts contributing data to one online community - how do you standardise the terminology across the whole community and merge that into one data set?

10.  Can you map existing term pick lists to other communities, particularly if an eHive account belongs to more than one community?

9&10 - We are investigating incorporating standard thesauri such as the Art and Architecture Thesaurus and the Thesaurus of Geographic Names to try and address these problems.

11.  What responsibility does eHive have for images presented on the eHive website regarding copyright?
The eHive Terms and Conditions has a section on Intellectual Property. There is also a copyright claims process. Both of these documents are linked in the main eHive.com website footer:
Terms and Conditions - http://ehive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11&Itemid=128&lang=en
Copyright Claims - http://ehive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25&Itemid=142&lang=en

12.  The help question mark adjacent to a data entry field only showed a help topic that was general to data entry screens, not specific to the field it was near.  Are there any plans to make the ? hyperlinks relate more specifically?
Yes, this is planned.

13.  Is there any way you can see whether a record has been saved as published to eHive or published to a community without waiting until saving the record?
We are planning to add this to the logged in Detail view of an object so it will be possible to see this even before editing a record.

14.  Tick boxes, such as the publishing options, have the potential to be misused by volunteers or data inputters as they can err on the side of ticking all.
We are planning to separate the publishing options from the saving function and will instead make this an option in the Toolbox. This will allow users to publish/unpublish groups of records and will make it clearer that the user is changing the publication status of the record rather than just saving the details.

Jennifer Taylor Moore

THE TALK
Jennifer Taylor Moore describes eHive, a new web based collection management product (CMS) by Vernon Systems. It is the world’s first CMS designed to be solely provided on a subscription basis over the Internet.

The first implementation of eHive was a significant New Zealand project to redevelop the NZMuseums website using eHive. This website provides a focal point for all museums in New Zealand and a strong presence on the Internet for several hundred small mainly voluntary museums.

The underlying eHive product provides collections management functions to participating museums without an existing CMS, while museums with existing systems contribute text and images to take advantage of the public access features.

The content for each museum or collector is stored in secure accounts in the one underlying system. Individual records and images can be marked as publicly available. By storing all of the content in a single system it is possible to create online communities representing geographical or thematic subsets which cross traditional museum boundaries.

The presentation will go over some of the issues we faced up to this point, show some of the features of the eHive and NZMuseums websites, and will look at what the future holds.

About Jennifer Taylor Moore

Jennifer is an arts graduate with a post-graduate diploma in museum studies and over seven years experience working in museums and galleries in New Zealand. She joined Vernon Systems in 2002 as UK Representative, based in London, and provides support and training for UK clients as well as assisting with general development, documentation and marketing.

To book a place, sign-up on Upcoming or call: 01273 206306

There is no bar, but you can bring your own drinks. So feel free to bring drinks for yourself and to share!

For anyone who couldn’t make it to our February talk, “Adventures in Linked Data Land”, you can check out the slideshow presentation:

Also, you can watch the first part of the talk on Vimeo (next time we will record on a bigger tape ).

Thanks to everyone for helping out and/or just being there!

Looking forward to see you all at the next talk, March, 25th, 2009 on “Culture Geeks: ‘eHive - the software revolution reaches the museum sector“. More details will be posted soon.

The next Culture Geeks’ talk is a special Christmas edition, with speaker Etienne Posthumus, who will be joinin us from Amsterdam to talk about:

The polyglot collection – making multilingual subject access to collections possible using ICONCLASS and Arkyves

Speaker: Etienne Posthumus

DATE: 17 December, 8.00 p.m.
WHERE: Regency Town House, 13 Brunswick Square, Hove. (map)

PRICE: Free

At http://www.arkyves.org/ Arkyves you will find a collection of images and descriptive metadata interpreting those images, and scholarly literature about the theory and practice of inter-preting images. This is a subscribtion database aggregating our own research and the work of several partner institutions.
Part of the service is the Arkyves Harvester of Image Metadata (AHIM).

Using this service a collection can provide sophisticated multilingual thematic access to their data.

In this talk we will:

• show an example of collections that use AHIM to provide multilingual searching  and browsing on their websites eg.  French Emblems at Glasgow University http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/french/
• look at how data is aggregated in Arkyves
• peek ‘under-the-bonnet’ to see how the back-end works (using OAI-PMH or a static file on a URL) get a brief overview of the standard classification system http://www.iconclass.nl/

…and if time allows we can also talk about:

• How to describe your own collection using ICONCLASS
• The SKOS version of ICONCLASS for use by Museum Management vendors examples: AdLib (Netherlands) & Imdas Pro (Austria)
• Converting (or mapping) existing classification systems to ICONCLASS for instant multilingual access.

Example: Database of Mid-Victorian wood-engraved Illustration from

Cardiff University, http://www.dmvi.cf.ac.uk/

To book a place, sign-up on Upcoming or  call: 01273 206306.

After the success of their first talk, Culture Geeks are looking for speakers
on and around the topic of ‘re-thinking technology and the Web for the cultural sectors’.

You don’t need to have spoken before, but do want to share your experiences and knowledge with other enthusiasts.
If you are interested, please contact Val Cartei: val.cartei@gmail.com.

Culture Geek launched their first event last week. It was exciting to see people so passionate about what we would like to achieve through this group. Thanks Karina for the talk and the demo, I am sure some of us have been playing with ARC 3D and Procedural to create their 3D models of their holiday photos.

After the Q&A session and a pit-stop to refill our glasses, Jeff Luan from Linden Lab showed us some really cool stuff happening in Second Life, from a 3D version of  Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night , to museums entirely built in the virtual world (i.e. the International Spaceflight museum ) or inspired from the real ones (i.e. Second Louvre Museum).

For anyone who couldn’t make it to last night, you can check out the photos on Culture Geeks’ Flickr group and download Karina’s slides: 3dforheritage.pdf.

This free-to-attend event will be a great opportunity to talk with people from IT, museums and cultural organisations who share a common interest in intergrating technology and culture.

We will start off with a short talk on:

” 3D Virtual Reality Technology for Cultural Heritage: More than computer games”

Speaker: Karina Rodriguez Echavarria, Research Fellow, University of Brighton.

DATE: 24 September, 7.30 p.m.
WHERE: Regency Town House, 13 Brunswick Square, Hove. (view map)

PRICE: Free

The use of 3D technology for Cultural Heritage is becoming
increasingly popular. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of
understanding of its potential and how to use it in order to enhance the documentation, research and communication of Cultural Heritage.
Hence, many people still refer this technology mainly to “computer games” without considering other prospective uses.
This presentation will describe 3D Virtual Reality technology in a
friendly way. It will also encourage discussion on ways in which this
technology can contribute to the heritage sector as well as support
and challenge visitors’ interpretation of the heritage displayed in
museums and cultural sites.

There is no bar, but you can bring your own drinks.

So feel free to bring drinks for yourself and to share!

Sign-up on upcoming, or phone: 01273 206306.

The number of places available is limited to 40, so be sure to grab a place in time!

Having crossed our first item in the list of TO-DOs, what’s next?

1. name for the group

2. create a logo

The logo for CULTURE GEEKS of course!

Something that can represent what we do, that can be easy to remember and easy to reproduce on different sizes (i.e. as an icon on Flickr, Twitter, etc. ).

Coloured logos are nice, as long as they can work in black and white as well.

Free your imagination and upload your ideas on our Culture Geeks Flickr group, so that we can keep everything in one place and make a decision considering all the contributions.

And we can finally replace the dull header of this blog…!!!