Tiziana Possemato @cult // Alessandra Lenzi - MG

Breaking down the walls

Project MINERV@

Museo Galileo and the Linked Open Data

A joint project between @cultand Museo Galileo

MUSEUM - Instruments, devices and other objects exhibited in the Museum or stored in the deposits (ca. 5,000 items)

LIBRARY - Books owned by the library or mentioned in the BIS and GAL bibliographies (ca. 150,000 works, ca. 90,000 BIS & GAL cit.)

ARCHIVE - Historical collections & institutional archive (ca. 200 l.m.)

PHOTO LAB - Historical & modern photos (ca. 30,000 items)

DIGITAL & MULTIMEDIA LAB

Museo Galileo departments

MG, an institution devoted to history of science

1599 Mathematics room in the Uffizi Gallery

1775 Royal Museum of physics and natural history

1929 National history of science exhibition

1966 Florence flood

1976 Layout of the “Book-Instrument” room

MG collections: a common history

Our ancient books and documents and our museum instruments share a “common” history

Goal “Integrated search”

To make available in one single search interface

the different types of MG resources,

regardless of material type and location

(not only those owned by MG, but also those

relevant for MG research projects)

and to highlight the connections among them

Breaking down the walls – 1st step

MG solutions

A non-linear process made up of various attempts and errors led us to the following choices:

To leave the early idea of separate databases and a common search interface

The library leads the integration process

The library catalogue is the starting point of the collective database

Only one database (Amicus), only one format (Marc21), only one search interface (ABL) for all the data

Collective database

Printed texts (books, reviews, journal articles) 273.106

Manuscripts & archival documents 29.803

Prints & photos 6.949

Museum objects (scientific instruments, medals) 1.728

Maps & atlases 553

Others 102

Total number of records 312.241

Records with digital version online 28.579

Results

Results

Results

Data sharing

Breaking down the walls – 2nd step

WORLDCAT - MG collective database (books, photos, archival documents, objects) downloaded in WorldCat

SBN Tuscany - MG ancient book collection added to SBN Tuscany and now available in SBN Italy

WIKIPEDIA - Dissemination of MG contents through new Wiki-pages with links to MG pages or pdf documents

ACNP - A 1st tranche of 400 periodicals added to ACNP; links to MG Digital Library

Data sharing in ACNP

Breaking down the walls – 2nd step

Project MINERV@

Breaking down the walls – 3rd step

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

Museo Galileo, with the collaboration of @CULT, took part in the project titled Museal Innovation - New ERgonomic Visit Approach (MINERV@), which led to the creation of a dataset according to the principles of the Linked Open Data (LOD).

The data converted in RDF – the data model for coding, exchanging and reusing metadata in a web environment – belong to the Museo Galileo’s collective database:

•the catalogue of instruments and machines

•the catalogue of the library, of the archive material and photo collections

•the Italian bibliography of the history of science

•the Galilean bibliography.

Project MINERV@ -- Implementation phases

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

Data identification and selection The data selection was made among 250,000 bibliographic and authority records from the Museo Galileo, originally products in MARC21 format.

The next step involved the selection of individual elements (MARC tags) included in the records to be converted in RDF; the choice has been guided by the principle of common interest: all relevant information to end users, such as title, author, publisher, year of publication, additional information identifying the resource.

Project MINERV@ -- Implementation phases

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

Data analysis, mapping and modeling Each element has been analyzed to identify the use made within the record and the catalog. The goal was the selection of the best ontologies to represent data:

•DCMI Metadata Terms

•RDF Schema

•Bibliographic Ontology (BIBO)

•FRBRoo and FRBRer Model

•RDA Elements

•Friend of a Friend (FOAF)

Project MINERV@ -- Implementation phases

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

Data analysis, mapping and modeling

Project MINERV@ -- Implementation phases

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

RDF production and validationMapping sheet was used to implement the conversion rules, in the data conversion framework (in RDF/XML).

The open source conversion framework used in the MINERV@ project, able to automate the full process of creating and publishing linked open data, was developed by @Cult; it became the first nucleus of the European project: Automatic publication under linked Data paradigm of library DAta (ALIADA)

Project MINERV@ -- Implementation phases

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

Data publishingThe LOD dataset "Database Museo Galileo: instruments, books, photographs, documents" was published in DataHub (the portal of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a non-profit global network dedicated to open information) and on the OpenData Portal of Tuscany Region:

•http://datahub.io/organization/museogalileo

•http://dati.toscana.it/dataset/banca-dati-museo-galileo-strumenti-libri-fotografie-documenti

With this last step the data become accessible, open, reusable.

Project MINERV@ -- Conclusions

Alessandra Lenzi - IMSS

The RDF output produced with MINERV@ should not be a point of arrival but a step to start again in the direction of breaking down the walls.

The hope for the future is the creation of a system that allows organizations to share useful way and functional mutual knowledge and skills and to interact in a constructive and cooperative in order to increase visibility, innovation and competitiveness.