Interoperability
The MICHAEL project aims to make interoperable the online cultural
resources of countries across Europe, starting with Italy, France,
and the UK. Clearly, standards play an important role.
MICHAEL is the continuation of work carried out over several years
by the National Representatives Group and the Minerva project. These
initiatives have focused on the coordination and standardization of
the data models and the processes involved in the creation, the management
and the maintenance of online cultural heritage resources. It is their
work which is used as the standards to which MICHAEL will comply.
Meta-data
The following standards have been identified as the most appropriate
by the NRG and by the Minerva project, and will be implemented in
MICHAEL
- Item-level meta-data: The Dublin
Core meta-data Element Set. This is by far the dominant meta-data
set for item-level descriptions. Originally established to describe
books and other bibliographic material, it has been extended and
interpreted to cover practically any item. It includes 15 core elements
and the possibility to add extensions as needed.
- DC.Culture:
enables the searching of item-level metadata through 4 key access
points – Who, What, Where and When. Potentially allows for
implementation of GIS through the Geo-crosswalk initiative.
- Collection-level meta-data: The Research
Support Libraries Programme collection-level meta-data model
forms the basis for the collection-level meta-data to be used in
MICHAEL. It includes 28 basic elements, of which 13 are ‘general’;
many of these are based on Dublin Core elements.
Technical Standards
The MICHAEL project will utilise the established technical norms
for online applications, based around XML and its technologies. See
the technical description above, for details.
Interoperability with other vendors / other projects
As noted above, the MICHAEL consortium recognise the importance of
interoperability with existing digital cultural heritage projects.
A large number of such projects exist, and many of them have their
own data models which differ from the MICHAEL data model.
The MICHAEL project will dedicate a significant amount of effort
to local data mapping, creating the translations which allow existing
cultural databases to be migrated or mapped to the MICHAEL data model.
While it is unfortunate that such work needs to be carried out, the
consortium recognises that MICHAEL does not and will not exist in
a vacuum, and that the investment in work in the past cannot be discarded.
Instead, MICHAEL will put in the effort to map to this existing work,
thus adding to what has gone before, while encouraging the use of
the NRG-endorsed standards in the future.
Quality and accessibility
Quality and Accessibility are very important issues for the success
of the MICHAEL services.
Some previous work has been realised on this matter, in the frame
of the MINERVA Network, with particular regard to the achievements
of its WP5 “Identification of user needs, content and quality
framework for common access points”. In order to exploit the
available results, MICHAEL will establish a specific Quality and Accessibility
Committee, inviting to this Committee the representative of the Ministère
de la Communauté Française of Belgium, who is the WP5
Leader of MINERVA and who have expressed the interest and availability
to participate.
