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European Standards Survey

National Overview 1.8 - United Kingdom

1.8.i International Initiativesclick here to edit data
i. Overall Comments:
None.

Initiative Details
Name:
Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI)
Duration (Start/End Date):
1990/on-going
URL:
http://www.cimi.org/
Contact name and title:
John Perkins - Project Director
Contact address:
252 Viewmount Dr. RR #2
Tantallon, NS
B0J 3J0
Canada

Tel: 902-826-2824
Fax: 902-826-1337
Email: jperkins@cimi.org
Partners
The following are members of CIMI as of April 1999.
  • Berkeley Museum Informatics Project, USA
  • California Digital Library, USA
  • Canadian Heritage Information Network
  • Coalition for Networked Information, USA
  • Corbis Corporation, USA
  • ADLIB Information Systems, Netherlands
  • Gallery Systems, USA
  • Getty Information Institute, USA
  • International Institute for Electronic Library Research, UK
  • mda, UK
  • Museum Computer Network, Canada
  • National Gallery of Canada
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum, USA
  • The National Museum of Denmark
  • Taiwan Digital Museum Project
  • University of Kansas Natural History Museum, USA
  • The Natural History Museum, UK
  • Australian Museums Online (AMOL)
  • The Research Libraries Group Inc., USA
  • Smithsonian Institution, USA
  • Walker Art Centre, USA
  • Willoughby Associates/Intermuse, USA
  • Arts & Humanities Data Service, UK
  • Minnesota Historical Society, USA
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
CIMI works together to bring cultural heritage information to the widest possible audience by:
  • encouraging open standards-based approaches to creating and sharing digital cultural heritage information
  • applying standards to museum information in demonstration projects that invite member participation and help them to further develop their information systems
  • disseminating the results of these collaborative efforts throughout the consortium sharing individual work on electronic information issues with each other
  • sharing individual work on electronic information issues with each other

CIMI's work is conducted by working groups that form around an issue, project, or area of application. This area lists the working group members and their affiliation. Details of some of CIMI's projects given below.

Initiative Details
Name:
Project CHIO, Cultural Heritage Information Online - CIMI
Duration (Start/End Date):
1994/1996
URL:
http://www.cimi.org/projects/index.html
Contact name and title:
John Perkins - Project Director
Contact address:
252 Viewmount Dr. RR #2
Tantallon, NS
B0J 3J0
Canada

Tel: 902-826-2824
Fax: 902-826-1337
Email: jperkins@cimi.org
Partners
As for CIMI.
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
In 1994, after deciding to adopt two key standards - SGML for structuring information and Z39.50 for search and retrieval - CIMI launched Project CHIO, Cultural Heritage Information Online, a demonstration project to test these two standards.

Project CHIO demonstrated solutions to the difficulties in achieving online access to cultural heritage information held in diverse locations - independent of the hardware and software used to store the data or search for it. The experiences gained from demonstrating how cultural information can be structured for easy electronic access were as important a result as the CHIO website itself, which offered a wide variety of information on folk art.

Initiative Details
Name:
Dublin Core Metadata Testbed - CIMI
Duration (Start/End Date):
1998/2000
URL:
http://www.cimi.org/projects/index.html
Contact name and title:
Angela T. Spinazze - Project Manager
Contact address:
Tel: 312.944.6820 (CST)
Fax: 312.944.6821
Email: atspin@mindspring.com
Partners
Phase I:
  • Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), UK
  • Blue Angel Technologies, Inc., USA
  • Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN)
  • Crossnet Systems Ltd/Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC) Pty Ltd, Australia
  • Databasix Information Systems B.V., Netherlands
  • Finsiel S.p.A., Italy
  • Gallery Systems, Inc., USA
  • Joanneum Research Institute, Austria
  • Museum Computer Network (MCN), USA
  • mda, UK
  • The National Museum of Denmark
  • University of Kansas Natural History Museum, USA
  • The Natural History Museum, UK
  • University of California-Berkeley, Museum Informatics Project (MIP), USA
  • Walker Art Center and The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts: Integrated Arts Information Access Project, USA
  • Willoughby Associates, Limited/Intermuse Division, USA
Phase II:
  • ADLIB Information Systems, Netherlands
  • American Museum of Natural History, USA
  • Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), and UK Office for Library & Information Networking (UKOLN), UK
  • Australian Museums OnLine (AMOL)
  • Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN)
  • Crossnet Systems Ltd./Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC) Pty Ltd, Australia
  • Gallery Systems, Inc., USA
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA
  • Integrated Arts Information Access Project, Walker Art Center and The Minneapolis Institute of the Art, USA
  • International Institute for Electronic Library Research/deMontfort University, UK
  • mda, UK
  • Taiwan Digital Museum Project
  • The National Museum of Denmark
  • The Natural History Museum, UK
  • Willoughby Associates, Limited/Intermuse Division, USA
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The testbed represented the initial component of a broader area of exploration. The Phase focused on documenting the experience of creating DC records within a wide range of localized museum environments. This documentation was used to:
  • Evaluate the feasibility of DC for the museum community by examining assumptions related to generating records
  • Bring to the surface and provide a forum for understanding and resolving issues concerning the operational aspects, technical infrastructure, intellectual challenges, and economics of DC record creation
  • Promote international consensus on DC practices in the museum and cultural heritage community.

Phase II involved several activities focused on sharing the Testbed results with the museum and larger DC community as well as expanding upon Phase I conclusions with an exploration of the extended element set (qualified Dublin Core) which offers more descriptive capabilities. Several initiatives took place during Phase II including:
  • The finalization and publication of the Guide to Best Practice: Dublin Core
  • Work on the identification and recommendation of proposed qualifier elements for enhanced descriptive capabilities

Initiative Details
Name:
Aquarelle
Duration (Start/End Date):
1996/1998
URL:
http://aquarelle.inria.fr/
Contact name and title:
[n/a]
Contact address:
[n/a]
Partners
Cultural organisations:
  • Ministère de la Culture (France)
  • Bibliothèque nationale de France (France)
  • Ministry of Culture (Greece)
  • Ministero per i Beni Culturi e Ambientali, Instituto Centrale per il Catalogo et la Documentazione (Italy)
  • Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (UK) [now part of English Heritage]
  • Museum Documentation Association (UK) [now mda]
  • Benaki Museum (Greece)
Publishers:
  • Fratelli Alinari (Italy)
  • Giunti Multimedia (Italy)
Information Technology companies:
  • Bull (France)
  • EUROCLID (France)
  • Grif (France)
  • ERGOMATIC Consultants (France)
  • FINSIEL (Italy)
  • INTRASOFT (Greece)
  • System Simulation Ltd (UK)
Research organisations:
  • INRIA (France)
  • CNR-CNUCE (Italy)
  • CNR-ITIM (Italy)
  • ICS-FORTH (Greece)
  • ILSP (Greece)
  • IMAG (France)
  • LIRMM (France)
  • Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK)
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The main technical objectives of the project were:
  • Develop a resource discovery system for the cultural heritage information available in archive and folder databases;
  • Provide the technical facilities supporting information access through hypertext navigation as well as information retrieval by querying;
  • Offer to users the possibility to query either on a one-to-one basis through direct connection to a given archive server, or on an exhaustive associative search basis through broadcasting a query to a set of relevant archive servers;
  • Design and install intermediary AQUARELLE servers aiding users in formulating, expanding, refining, translating and routing queries. These servers should have also the role of managing connections and access rights;
  • Design and integrate an authoring environment supporting creation of multimedia derived-products (folders), and encouraging reuse of reference information and multimedia assets available on the network.

Initiative Details
Name:
Promoting an Information Society for Everyone (PROMISE)
Duration (Start/End Date):
January 1997-June 1998
URL:
http://www.stakes.fi/promise/basics/index.html
Contact name and title:
Information Society Project Office of the European Commission
Contact address:

1





Partners
.
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The project aims to encourage teh inclusion of older people and disabled people in the emerging Information Society in Europe by means of exchanging experience and examples of good practice in this area

The project identifies examples of good practice that relate to new opportunities and challenges of Information Society and uses these as a starting point to explore and encourage appropriate actions and policies at European and national level.





Initiative Details
Name:
European Science Foundation Fossil Insect Database
Duration (Start/End Date):
October 1996- March 2000
URL:
www.esf.org/life/In/Fossil/In_006a.html
Contact name and title:
Dr Ann Moth-Wiklund, Scientific Secretary or Ms. Joanne Dalton, Adminstrative Secretary
Contact address:
Only phone numbers and e-mail downloaded from website

Tel: +33 3 88 76 71 22

Fax: + 33 3 88 37 05 32

Partners
.European Science Foundation
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The new European Science Foundation Network on Fossil Insects aims to unite Europe's palaeontomological community within a common research framework and to improve the scientific exploitation of the large number of fossil insects collected in Europe during recent years.

One of the Network's primary goals is the establishment of a database providing access, via the internet to information about collections, localities containing insects, and publications.


1.8.ii National Initiatives click here to edit data
i. Overall Comments:
None.

Initiative Details
Name:
Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network (SCRAN)
Duration (Start/End Date):
1996/2001
URL:
http://www.scran.ac.uk/
Contact name and title:
Professor Bruce Royan - Chief Executive
Contact address:
Abden House
1 Marchhall Crescent
Edinburgh
EH16 5HP

email: bruce@scran.ac.uk
Tel: 0131 662 1211
Fax: 0131 662 1511
Partners
There are no projects partners, however Scottish museums are paid up to 50% of their costs in digitising their collections for use within SCRAN.
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
SCRAN's mission is to create a fully searchable resource base of Scottish material culture and human history. Funded by the Millennium Commission, they work with project partners such as museums, galleries, archives and universities to digitise selected parts of their collections. There are over 200 projects underway and material is being added to the resource base daily.

SCRAN will cost just under £15 million, of which 50% has been secured from the Millennium Commission. Matching partnership funding will be provided as a combination of cash, in-kind resources and, critically, copyright licences permitting SCRAN to use for educational purposes the assets of the participating museums, galleries and archives.

By the year 2001, SCRAN will provide easy access to one million text records of historic monuments and of artefacts held in museums, galleries and archives, plus 120,000 related multimedia resources. In addition, SCRANwill have commissioned 100 multimedia essays, based on these resources, for educational use.

Digitised assets contributed to SCRAN are governed by a licence agreement protecting the contributors' commercialisation rights while ensuring unrestricted access, free at the point of use, for members of participating educational institutions. Explanatory text and thumbnail images are freely available for home learning, while SCRAN licensed members such as schools, libraries and community centres can download more extensive assets, copyright cleared for educational use, and protected by invisible watermarking and fingerprinting.

A range of multimedia essays are being produced by SCRAN in partnership with the relevant institutions, users and multimedia production companies. Other CD-ROMs are being generated directly from the SCRAN resource base by SCRAN staff.

Initiative Details
Name:
Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA) National Recording Project
Duration (Start/End Date):
1997/2001
URL:
http://www.unn.ac.uk/~hc004/nrp.htm
Contact name and title:
Jo Darke, Cheif Executive
Contact address:
No address supplied on website although there is an e-mail contacts list for NRP members.






Partners
Collaborating institutions are British acadmic institutions.
  • University of Central England
  • Courtauld Institute of Art, London
  • University of East London
  • Edinburgh College of Art
  • Glasgow School of Art
  • Leicester University
  • University of Liverpool
  • Kingston University
  • Mancheser Metropolitan University
  • National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside
  • Nottingham Trent University
  • University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne
  • Royal Commission on the Historical Monumens of England, now English Heritage
  • University of the West of England, Bristol
  • University of Wales (Cardiff and Aberystwyth)
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The PMSA's National Recording Project is a project to catalogue every piece of public sculpture and every public monument in the British Isles and to maintain that information in digital and archive form for public access.

The country is broken down into Regional Archive Centres (RACs), mostly run from academic institutions. Each is responsible for the survey of thier local area, the information from which is then conveyed to the National Archive Centre for collation, storage and dissemination in digital form.





Initiative Details
Name:
FENSCORE
Duration (Start/End Date):
1980 -
URL:
www.fenscore.man.ac.uk
Contact name and title:
C.Pettitt, Fenscore webmaster
Contact address:
C. Pettitt@man.ac.uk

Only contact information on website




Partners
  • Manchester Museum
  • Manchester University
  • Museums and Galleries Commission
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The Federation for Natural Sciences Collections Research is and adhoc body set up in 1980 to co-ordinate the activities of regional groups of curators in the UK who were then beginning to survey natural science collections [Botany, Geology, Zoology] in their areas. After Nearly two decades, a great deal of information has been gathered and published, and this website has been set up to provide both a searchable national database of collection information, and to provide current and archive information about collections research in the British Isles

The site is hosted at the University of Manchester by Manchester University on behalf of the FENSCORE committee.

Initiative Details
Name:
Cornucopia: Discovering UK Collections
Duration (Start/End Date):
2000 -
URL:
www.cornucopia.org.uk
Contact name and title:
E.Taylor
Contact address:
e.taylor@mgcuk.co.uk

Only contact information on website




Partners
  • Museums and Galleries Commission
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
Cornucopia: Discovering UK Collections is a new project from the Museums and Galleries Commission. It will give a complete picture of the wealth of UK museum collections through a comprehensive database available on this website

The pilot website provides information on the 50 museums in England with Designated collections. Designation celebrates pre-eminent museum collections outside the National Museums and now covers a wide-ranging group of outstanding collections in museums throughout England.

The full Cornucopia is going on-line in 2000 and will cover the collections of all 1,700 MGC Registered Museums in the UK. Cornucopia will give all the information needed to contact a museum or make a visit, as well as providing a link to the musem's own website. You can also find out whether the collections you want to see are likely to be on display or in store and Cornucopa will tell you how to arrange to see objects in store if you need to .
Initiative Details
Name:
24 Hour Museum
Duration (Start/End Date):
1999 -
URL:
www.24hourmuseum.org.uk
Contact name and title:
Ylva French
Contact address:
The Campaign for Museums

35-37 Grosvenor Gardens

London

SW1W OBX

TEl: 0171 233 6789

Fax: 0171 233 6789

e-mail ylva@ylvafrench.co.uk
Partners
  • mda: supporting cultural information management
  • Campaign for Museums
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
24 Hour Museum is the UK's gateway to museums, galleries and heritage attractions on the web.

The 24 Hour Museum, which enjoys the status of a national museum, if founded and managed by the Campaign for Museums and mda. It is supported by UK museums and galleries who enjoy free access and a full updating service from the 24 Hour Museum team.

Initiative Details
Name:
The Darwin Correspondence Project
Duration (Start/End Date):
1974 -
URL:
www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Departments/Darwin/intro.html
Contact name and title:
Adam Perkins, Archivist
Contact address:
The Darwin Project

c/o Alan Perkins, Archivist

University Library

Cambridge, CB3 9DR

ajp@ula.cam.ac.uk
Partners
  • American Council of Learned Societies
  • Cambridge University Library
Brief description (published aims and objectives):
The Darwin Correspondence Project was founded in order to publish the definitive edition f the letters to and from Charles Darwin, the most celebrated naturalist of the 19th century.

The Project has staff in both the UK and US those in the UK being based in Cambridge University Library, England, which houses the largest single collection of around 9,000 letters. It has carried out a systematic search for additional material, obtained copies and transcribed all known letters into an electronic format.

1.8.iii Regional Initiatives click here to edit data
i. Overall Comments:
There are many regional projects. David Dawson of Resource has been applied to for an authoritative list of the most important ones.

Submission Details
i. Submitted by: Gordon McKenna
ii. Job title: Special Projects & Systems Manager
iii. Organisation: mda
iv. E-mail: gordon@mda.org.uk
v. Date Submitted: 07/02/2000
i. Submitted by: Sande Nuttall
ii. Job title: Temporary Standards Support Officer
iii. Organisation: mda
iv. E-mail: sande@mda.org.uk
v. Date Submitted: 03/05/2000

Funded by the European Commission - DGX - Raphaël Programme