INTEGRATING ACCESS to CULTURAL HERITAGE COLLECTIONS

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INTEGRATING ACCESS to CULTURAL HERITAGE
COLLECTIONS 1. The WESTERN AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL
HERITAGE PORTAL
TOBY BURROWS University of Western Australia
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Western Australian Cultural Heritage Portal

• Australian Research Council Linkage
  Infrastructure, Equipment Facilities (LIEF)
  fund
• Partners University of Western Australia, Curtin
  University, Western Australian Department for
  Culture the Arts
• Software vendor Fretwell-Downing Informatics
  (now OCLC PICA)

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Everyone thinks they know what portal means,
and everyone thinks it means something
different. Brian Schottlaender University of
California San Diego A portal is a place which
hides resources on the network. Lorcan
Dempsey OCLC
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WACHP features

• Single search across distributed Web resources
• State Library of W.A., UWA Library, John Curtin
  Prime Ministerial Library, National Archives,
  Berndt Museum of Anthropology, New Norcia Library
• Art galleries?
• Western Australian focus works best for searches
  on W.A. names and places
• http//chp.library.uwa.edu.au

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Activities
ARC Network for Early European Research (NEER)

• Collaborative Grant Programs
• Symposia
• International conferences
• Co-sponsored events
• Postgraduate/ECR
• Digital agenda

• Funded 2004-2009 Australian Research Council
  Networks Programme
• Enhance the scale and focus of research
• Encourage more inter-disciplinary approaches
• Facilitate collaborative innovative
  approaches to planning undertaking research
• 300 individual participants university
  industry partners
• Programmes for Australian participants
• Symposia, conferences, events
• Collaborative grant programmes
• Postgraduate/ECR programmes
• International linkages

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Digital Initiatives

• Communication
• Web site, e-mail lists
• Collaborative working tools and workspaces
  Confluence
• Shared resources
• Commercial databases ProQuest (EEBO), Brepols (5
  databases)
• Skills and training Brepols internships
• Electronic publication Parergon / Project Muse
• Research repository PioNEER
• Heritage collections Europa Inventa

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Europa Inventa

• A gateway to all Early European items in
  Australian collections
• Focus initially is on unique objects (especially
  artworks, manuscripts) . Could expand later to
  cover incunabula, early printed books, early
  printed maps, prints and engravings.
• The initial cut-off date is 1800.
• Focus on material relating to or produced in
  Western Europe.
• Link from descriptive catalogue records to
  digitized images held on the servers of the
  holding institutions, rather than storing copies
  of images centrally.

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Functional desiderata

• Browse by subject, name, type of object, holding
  institution and location, places of origin and
  provenance (and by combinations of these
  characteristics)
• Search the database and browse the results using
  various facets
• Link to more detailed descriptions
• Link to works about the objects
• Link to digitized versions
• Add information about the objects

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Processes for building

• Import catalogue records from libraries,
  galleries, museums, archives, and normalize into
  a consistent structure
• Develop and apply ontologies for describing Early
  European objects, concepts, places and events
• Make the database available for searching and
  browsing (using software environment based on
  MuseumFinland)
• Make the database available for annotation by
  researchers
• Augment and enrich the records with links to more
  detailed descriptions and to secondary works

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Sample records 1 (NGV)

• Giovanni Battista TIEPOLO Italian 16961770
  worked in Venice (1740s), Würzburg 175153,
  Venice 175362, Madrid 176270 The banquet of
  Cleopatra (174344) oil on canvas250.3 x 357.0
  cm Felton Bequest, 1933

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Sample records 2 (NGA)

• Peter Paul RUBENS
• Germany (Westphalia) 1577 Belgium (Flanders)
  1640
• also worked in Spain
• Self-portrait 1623 oil on canvas 91.3
  (h) x 70.8 (w) cm
• original canvas 94.0 (h) x 70.8 (w) cm
• sight 83.5 (h) x 61.8 (w) cm
• frame 112 (h) x 89 (w) x 12 (d) cm
• not signed, not dated Purchased 1983
  NGA 1983.53
• Provenance
• the artist until August 1628
• to Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637),
  Belgentier, near Toulon, and Aix-en-Provence,
  June 1630

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Sample records 3 (SLV)

• Author Boethius, d. 524.
• Title De musica of Boethius and Musica
  enchiriadis an abridgment. ms. on vellum.
• Notes late 10th cent..
• Indexed in Sinclair (1969) p. 381-382 Manion
  Vines 35
• Status Available
• Location
• RARES Call Number 091 B63

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Further information

• NEER Web site http//www.neer.arts.uwa.edu.au
  /
• Confluence http//confluence.arts.uwa.edu.
  au/
• Toby Burrows tburrows_at_library.uwa.edu.au