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Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
EMu on the WebPast, Present and
FutureAlex Fell
KE Software
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Past
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE TexHTML
• 1993-4 (ish). About the time the first browsers were developed.
• One of the first web interfaces to a database.• Cutting edge for it's time.• Became very complex over the course of it's lifetime.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE TexHTML – Victoria Parliament
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Present
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Texxmlserver and PHP
• Developed initially in 2001.• Aimed to simplify web development by using existing
technologies (XML over HTTP and PHP).• “Standard Interface” customisable by the customer.• “Custom Interface” to allow more complex pages to be
developed by KE Staff and external developers.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
“Standard” PHP Interface
• Presents a configurable, catalogue-centric view.• Very quick to set up, so a collection can be on the web very
soon after going live with EMu.• Limited amount of customisation available.• Common (shared) presentation layer makes extensive changes
hard because all users of the standard interface may be affected.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
“Custom” PHP Interface
• Page design and operation not at all defined.• Pages can be made to any brief, so no limit on design or
functionality.• Because no design / layout work is done for you, pages take
longer to produce and complex pages often require a developer.• Many of our older customers now use plenty of the custom
interface as part of their sites.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE Mapper
• Gives a spacial representation to the collection.• Plots items on a map.• Most easily applied to Natural History collection as locality
information (lat / long etc.) comprises part of the collection information.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE Mapper
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Object Locator• Like the mapper, but displayes the current location of objects on a
map of the museum.• Requires location records to be supplemented with spacial
information, but uses existing location database.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Object Locator
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE Portal• Draws data from several separate databases.• Interface with many different databases (Texpress or otherwise)• GBIF, OAI, DiGiR, Darwin Core schemas supported.• In use at OZCAM, and of course, Manchester Museums
Unwrapped.
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE Portal – www.ozcam.gov.au
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
KE Portal – Unwrapped
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Future
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
PHP 5• Opportunity to re-write “Standard” and “Custom” interfaces (and
rename them)?• Break apart from the one-size-fits-all Standard Interface model?
Is ease of use balanced by extensibility in a shared code base?
• What should happen to existing PHP 4 interface?• Backwards compatibility?
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
JDBC• Working driver in development, in use with KE Vitalware• Better interface with database• Easier to use than PHP?• More transferable than PHP?
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Web 2.0?(what is it?)
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Community contributed information or narratives
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Narratives, descriptive keywords, opinions & comments(still narratives?)
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
Issues• What gets contributed?• Does it require museum approval?• If so, how should this be presented to the museum?• If not, what's the worst that could happen?• Should it be stored in EMu?
Collections Management Museums
EMu on the Web – Past, Present and Future
EMu on the WebPast, Present and
Future