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Making cultural resources accessible
Issue 1 of Covax News outlined the objectives of COVAX (Contemporary
Culture Virtual Archive in XML). A key part of the project involves
bringing together and searching distributed databases using fast-developing
open standards based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language). How does
Covax intend to describe the collections included in the service?
How are we addressing the need for resource discovery in multiple
languages?
A key part of the Covax approach is the innovative use of an XML
Explain database based on the concept of the Z39.50 Explain standard,
used to describe System Details about servers, Content Provider
details about organisations and XML-Repository details about databases
and collections.
The descriptions, names, addresses, and support information for
each site or database are marked up using XML, which provides a
common structure for information provided by each of the partners.
The records for the prototype are being centrally coordinated, so
that for each a native language version is prepared and one in English.
Then each partner is responsible for translating each record into
their own language, according to a schedule of responsibilities
allocated by the workpackage manager. If a partner fails to contribute
their translations, a record is made available to the Covax system
only in English or in those version that are available. It is hoped
that partners will contribute Explain content records and translations
promptly in order to ensure that their materials are easily accessible
to the maximum number of users.
PARTNER PROFILE: Residencia de Estudiantes
The Residencia de Estudiantes, founded in 1910 by the Junta Para
Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas,
is now a private foundation, created by the Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in December 1989. Originally
a student residence, it became the primary cultural centre in Spain.
It is known as being the institution where Spaniards such as Federico
García Lorca, Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, Severo
Ochoa, Miguel de Unamuno, Alfonso Reyes, Manuel de Falla, Juan Ramón
Jiménez, José Ortega y Gasset, Pedro Salinas, Blas
Cabrera, Eugenio d'Ors or Rafael Alberti, were living or were assiduous
visitors. Furthermore, the Residencia was a forum for debate and
dissemination of the intellectual life between 1910-1936. Albert
Einstein, Paul Valéry, Marie Curie, Igor Stravinsky, John
M. Keynes, Alexander Calder, Walter Gropius, Henri Bergson o Le
Corbusier among others visited and shared their knowledge in the
Residencia.
Since 1990 the Residencia is once again one of the most important
cultural centres of Spain. Also the Residencia de Estudiantes is
devoted to the recovery and dissemination of its historical legacy.
Hence, a unique collection of bibliographical and documentary resources
specializing in the intellectual history and contemporary science
of first third of the Twentieth Century can be consulted. The personal
archives of Luis Cernuda, Jesús Bal y Gay, Fernando de los
Ríos, Manuel Altolaguirre y Concha Méndez o León
Sánchez Cuesta and those of institutions such as the Junta
para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas
or the Museo Pedagógico Nacional stand out.
A description of the documentary and bibliographical resources
and a collection of images of the digitized documents are available
at the Red de centros y archivo virtual de la Edad de Planta de
la cultura española contemporánea (1868-1936), a project
which is headed by the Residencia de Estudiantes and is financed
by the Fundación Marcelino Botín. (website: http://www.achivovirtual.org)
The Residencia promotes research projects focusing on two main
areas of
activity: discovery and disclosure of the historical legacy of Spanish
culture, and presentation and analysis of present trends in thought
in order to explore the future of culture as we know it.
The Residencia de Estudiantes publishes critical editions of its
historical texts and rescues exceptional testimonies such as the
"Archivo de la Palabra" or the Residencia" magazine.
Review of XML Spy
by Fabrizio Poggi, ENEA, Rome
Introduction
XML Spy is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) environment
from Altova GmbH & Altova used in the Covax project to manage
and simplify the markup and editing tasks of users handling XML
materials. Website: http://www.xmlspy.com/
XML
XML is a subset of the SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)
markup language, defined by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
XML is a free, non-proprietary standard that is likely in the near
future to play an important part in the transfer, presentation,
enrichment and standardization of computer data and transactions.
Many IT companies now consider XML as crucial for the future development
of innovative
technologies.
It should be relatively straightforward to read, validate and edit
XML code but the development of the related tools is still in progress.
We can certainly work with XML, including use of open source tools
(that for many of us seems a preferred option), but XML tools currently
available are not particularly suitable or easy to use, especially
compared with tools availabile for HTML, web authoring, java and
JavaScript related, etc.
XML Spy 3.5 Premium version
-- please note that a 4.0 beta version of XML Spy is now available
but not reviewed here --
XML Spy is not an open source IDE, but, from the point of view
of usability and functionality for XML management, it seems to be
an excellent choice, offering the necessary reliability for professional
use. XML supports the full XML syntax, parsing, well-formedness,
validation, encoding; DTD definition; schema definition; XSL and
XSLT
management; HTML and XHTML rules (this last is a superset of HTML4.0
rules that adds to markup a more rigorous syntax and compatibility
with XML environments); syntax highlighting; interoperability with
other external applications (imports from microsoft Word); some
of ASP and BizTalk (untested).
The grid mode
In the Covax context, we use XML Spy for working with our source
data in several modes. The XML graphical representation in XML Spy
is called "Enhanced Grid View". Without a screenshot of
this mode, think of it as a hierarchical view that allows easy reading
and work on the structure of the XML source (structure intended
as the tree of parents, child and sibling elements) and with field
values encapsulated in the structure itself.
This working mode presents coloured fonts and cells that improve
visual presentation (parameters can be customised by the user: font
size, font colour, colour of selected and non selected elements).
This mode gives the best idea of the structure. The benefits of
this mode are mainly the ability to edit the hierarchical tree safely
(the content of the tree elements is limited by the grid cells and
users can't mistake content editing and structure editing) and to
add, remove, change the location
of elements and values shown using standard windows methods (drag
and drop, copy, cut, paste).
XML Spy makes this work so easy that someone may accidentally move
elements, so perhaps there should be a confirmation pop-up window
for drag and drop events. However, the infinite undo mechanism should
allow users to avoid accidental changes. At the time of writing
we have come across a few small problems, related mainly to expansion
of elements and scrolling grids containing cells with large amounts
of texts inside, but these are just minor scrolling difficulties
when viewing with a 1024x768
screen resolution.
Text and browse mode
The alternative mode is text view, supplemented by a browser
mode. We consider these last two as a single mode of working (as
in most cases the user works on the text source switching continually
to browser mode to verify the result of applied changes). In this
mode the user has more control over the markup coding and can work
directly with it, with the support of a useful auto-completion function
and syntax highlighting.
This mode is always active during editing and provides readability
(the tags and the special parameters appear here in different colours)
as well as reducing typing effort (XML tag pairs are closed auto-magically
by the IDE and in HTML, where the tags are limited to a small subset,
a window list appears on the cursor popping up with all possible
completions for the typed code). Switching to browser view, the
user can
easily see the results of editing in a preview (almost identical
to Internet Explorer display) of the HTML page.
The XML work
Our main work was loading, parsing and validating XML sources
against a DTD. XML Spy first loads the entire source. When the xml
file has been loaded, XML Spy verifies the well-formedness of the
source using its internal parser. An incremental check of the syntax
is applied, allowing the user to apply corrections and changes.
This check also includes special characters and encoding.
The second phase is validation. When a DTD is specified in the
XML source document, XML Spy also loads the DTD file and performs
a check on rules and semantics, matching the DTD file (which contains
all the rules) and the XML file (which contains a data structure
and contents).
At this stage it is also possible to make changes and corrections
on the fly to complete the validation. Our experience of using this
validation shows that the built-in parser conforms more closely
to the Microsoft XML specifications, than to the full W3C XML standard.
In some cases, XML source documents validated in XML Spy gave us
problems with other validation systems. For example, the Tamino
internal loader/parser detected errors in XML documents that had
been fully validated in XML Spy.
Conclusions
XML Spy 3.5 Premium Version is a professional, stable tool for
Windows 98, ME, Nt4 and Windows 2000 O/S. It has an attractive,
intuitive interface well implemented using a small setup package.
It is an ideal IDE environment for markup languages in specific
contexts (e.g.: XML, XSL, XSLT, HTML, XHTML etc.). It is one of
the first powerful tools available. XML editing benefits include
auto completion, syntax highlighting, multiview environment, parsing,
undo/redo infinite mechanism.
Despite the small package size, XML Spy requires a huge amount
of physical memory and system resources (because of the undo/redo
mechanism and the need to load documents fully into RAM memory).
We have experienced some problems with large XML documents (10MB)
on a Windows NT4 Workstation running on a Pentium II processor with
128 MB RAM. Other minor problems are: the management of tree expansions
and window scroll bars when used in grid mode working on fields
containing large amounts of text; some delays in text mode when
typing in large files.
Kulturerbe:online
By Georg Guentner, Salzburg Research, email:
georg.guentner@salzburgresearch.at
Exploitation plans for COVAX in Austria start with a virtual catalogue
for Austria's cultural heritage on the Internet.
One important issue arising with RTD projects carried out under
the IST programme within the 5th Framework Programme is the development
of exploitation strategies for the results achieved. COVAX (Contemporary
Virtual Archives in XML, IST-1999-11820) provides mainly technological
proof, that the upcoming XML standard is feasible as the basis of
distributed cross-domain metadata-searching in the field of cultural
heritage and as a communications interface within the component
based application architecture.
Exploitation plans at Salzburg Research, one of the technology
partners of the COVAX consortium, consider a strategy that starts
from a service centred point of view. The "Kulturerbe:online"
project ("cultural heritage online") aims to create a
national service infrastructure, both organisational and technical,
that provides a virtual catalogue of Austria's cultural heritage.
COVAX components will be used for this, although they will have
to be adapted, localised and further developed.
The main aim of the Kulturerbe:online project is to set up a virtual
catalogue of the Austrian cultural heritage on the internet accessible
from an ALM portal. A number of different cultural institutions
(Museums, Libraries, Archives) will create a common platform for
making their catalogues available to the public. Kulturerbe:online
thus offers a comprehensive search engine for the Austrian cultural
heritage. This search engine is not a substitute for existing catalogues,
but instead makes these accessible via a single user interface and
links to the more detailed catalogues of the partner institutions
and their digital surrogates.
Kulturerbe:online is a pilot project, which proves by developing
a network of participating partner institutions that it is possible
to consolidate different standards of description and categorisation
schemes to form a common platform and make resources searchable
via a shared method. The participating cultural institutions provide
parts of their digital catalogues and participate unremunerated
as pilot-users in the project.
In later issues of this newsletter we will describe our plans
to use the Kulturerbe:online portal as the starting place for search
services and for information services from syndicated ALMs. The
Kulturerbe:online project is being carried out by Salzburg NewMediaLab,
a national centre of competence for new media, and by a consortium
of partners comprising amongst others AIT, Software AG Austria and
the Austrian National Library.
Kulturerbe:online
- Is developing a virtual catalogue of the Austrian cultural heritage
- Offers a common and uniform view of Austrian cultural heritage
- Makes references to the detailed catalogues of cultural institutions
- Is developing the technical basis for the preservation of the
catalogue of Austrian Heritage
- Advises and assists institutions in the development of their
own digital catalogues
- Represents an important building block in the development of
comprehensive e-services for museums, libraries and archives
COVAX EVENTS
Fifth ICCC/IFIP Conference on Electronic Publishing.
Canterbury, UK.
The main objective of COVAX is to test the use of XML to combine
document descriptions and digitised surrogates of cultural documents
to build a global system for search and retrieval, increasing accessibility
via the Internet to electronic resources, regardless of their location.
COVAX's approach to achieving its objectives is based on the conversion
of existing records to homogeneously-encoded document descriptions
of bibliographic records, archive finding aids, museum records and
catalogues, and electronic texts and on the application of XML (eXtensible
Markup Language) and the various Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
currently being used for library resource descriptions (MARC DTD),
archives finding aids (EAD), museum materials (AMICO DTD) and electronic
versions of cultural texts (TEIlite).
The conversion process has proved to be a crucial one in the COVAX-project
and we therefore try to disseminate our experiences of converting
existing data at seminars, workshops and conferences.
One such event is the Fifth ICCC/IFIP Conference on Electronic
Publishing to be held in Canterbury, UK 5-7 July 2001 The conference
will be concerned with electronic publishing both for specialist
audiences and for the general public. There will be two parallel
tracks. The first track will include case studies, presentations
of projects and presentations of implemented electronic publishing
solutions in public and scholarly libraries, publishers, museums,
etc. It will also include electronic provision of local community
or tourist information, government information, and the like.
The second track will concentrate on technical issues such as file
formats, retrieval issues, etc. A major underlying theme of the
ICCC/IFIP Electronic Publishing conferences is the promotion of
an 'exchange of experience' between the participants - especially
between academics researching in the area, and publishers and others
with
practical experience. All papers are refereed to ensure high quality.
The Covax paper written for the conference (Friday the 6th of July
13:30) is entitled "Converting heterogenous cultural catalogues
and documents to XML - strategies and solutions of the Covax project",
by Francisca Hernández, Peter Linde, Bob Mulrenin and Robin
Yeates, presented by Robin Yeates. (http://library.ukc.ac.uk/iccc/2001)
First Austrian Metadata Seminar, Vienna, Austria.
Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur.
Vienna 18 May 2001
This event organized by CSC Austria and the Bundesminsterium
für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur reviewed metadata and
current European XML developments for museums, libraries and archives,
including COVAX, presented by Georg Guentner of Salzburg Research.
The event has a website at http://www.cscaustria.at/events/eu0006.htm
that includes presentations and a short summary by Michael Day of
UKOLN.
OTHER COVAX EVENTS
First Italian Workshop "XML e Conoscenza" Podere d'Ombriano
- Crema, Italy
29th-30th June, 2001
http://kaos.crema.unimi.it/xml
An experience in XML: the COVAX project - L. Bordoni
Workshop on "Artificial Intelligence for the Cultural Heritage
and Digital Libraries" - Bari, Italy 25th September, 2001
http://www.di.uniba.it/~aiia/english.html
The Covax project- L. Bordoni
Society of Archivists' Annual Conference "Safeguarding our
culture' - Aberystwyth, UK
4-7 September, 2001
http://www.archives.org.uk/conf/aberystwyth.html
COVAX - Contemporary culture visual archives in XML - Robin Yeates
(5
September, 2001)
More about COVAX
A website has been established in Catalan, English, German, Italian,
Spanish, and Swedish at http://www.covax.org.
Carlos Wert, the project Coordinator and Francisca Hernández
have published an introductory article on COVAX in Cultivate Interactive
Issue 3 January 2001 (http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue3/covax/).
Contacts
Project coordinator
Carlos Wert, Residencia de Estudiantes, Pinar, 23, 28006 Madrid,
Spain.
mail: ile@interlink.es
URL: http://www.covax.org/
Dissemination
Robin Yeates
Associate Director
LITC, South Bank University
Postal address: 103 Borough Rd, London SE1 0AA United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (020) 7815 6924
Fax: +44 (020) 7815 7050
email: yeatesrb@sbu.ac.uk
URL: http://www.sbu.ac.uk/litc
More info
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