About the ethnoArc project
Goals
- To define, develop and implement a system that allows the digital representation of rich and complex information originating from different sources
- To elaborate a common metadata specification scheme that allows diverse scientific approaches and searches
- To ensure interoperability of the digitalised source materials and to enable cross-language searchability
- To demonstrate the capability of the implemented system to handle legacy data, as well as to integrate new, interrelated content with the associated metadata efficiently
- To test and show the usefulness of the system for users from academic and cultural areas
- To publicize the development in professional circles and make tools and instructions available for other potentially interested archives
Measures
The task is divided into several steps and work packages.
- Preparatory Actions and Metadata Specification
- to present the state of the art in digital music archives
- to investigate and compile the archives' demands on system
- to negotiate and agree on a common metadata specification scheme
- Technical Realisation
- to design the archive architecture
- to perform the technical development and implementation of the distributed archive
- to define a method for storing metadata information in a self-descriptive format and an API for storing, retrieving and searching the metadata
- to describe mapping mechanisms, allowing meta-searches in differently structured archives
- to provide a web interface to the distributed archive holdings
- Putting the system into practice
- to adapt content and metadata from the consortium archives for the purposes of the distributed archive
- to define and provide a "production line" for the digitalization of analogue content and associated metadata
- to define and provide a method for adapting and importing existing digital content and metadata into the distributed archive
- Users' System Evaluation
- to test and verify the appropriateness of the initially defined metadata specification scheme and the resulting database structure for research and other purposes
- to test the competence of the system to enable meta-searches that span multiple, differently structured archives
- to feed the researchers' critique back to the system developers
- Dissemination and Exploitation
- to present the project's aims, methods and results to other archives and invite them to join the distributed archive
- to provide the metadata specification to relevant standards bodies and expert circles
- to attract scholars' attention to the newly created research facilities
- to disseminate the project's results to the wider public
- to discuss and explore further the chances of using the system for creative industries
Expected Results
The project will show the usability of the metadata structure by converting information from legacy archives. The project will also build and document a production chain for digitalising content and entering metadata as a basis for advanced research. The database design, as well as the APIs developed in the project, will be made publicly available, to encourage others to provide information in a structured, complex and metadata-rich format. Involving experts in the definition of parameters and the evaluation process will ensure that technical solutions fit the needs of archives and users alike.
Co-operation and constant exchange among the participants, as required by the project (e.g., when negotiating and agreeing on the metadata architecture and in finding an appropriate common language), will also have the effect of opening up the perspectives of the partners and relativising particular viewpoints, especially for the ethnographic collections. It will thus promote a comparative approach and create a sense for the larger European contexts.
Facts
The ethnoArc consortium consists of seven partners.
Start of the project: 1st of September 2006; duration: 24 months.
EU contribution: 706,000 €