Hi Anita (and everyone),
We at the Hearst Museum use Delphi (http://code.google.com/p/delphi-museum-project/
). It doesn't link directly to our TMS back end, relying instead on
static, mostly automated dumps from specific TMS fields. The dumps
are then processed using natural language processing and semantic
algorithms, and then indexed against faceted ontologies to produce a
faceted browser. During the indexing, the available data is enlarged
according to rules we've written into the ontologies (rules like "all
xxxx are xxxx, except when they're xxxx and/or xxxx). It's a powerful
and exciting solution for data that are sparsely populated in certain
parts of our collections.
While Delphi doesn't interface with live TMS data, there are plans to
integrate it with CollectionSpace (http://www.collectionspace.org/).
Delphi is open source software, but it's not yet at the point where a
non-technical person could download it and run it without assistance
(but we're heading in that direction). Delphi makes use of some
social tools like tagging and set building/sharing, and presents an
accessible way to explore and discover our collections. You can see
the Hearst's implementation (still in development) of Delphi at http://pahma.berkeley.edu/delphi/
. The part of our implementation that needs the most work is the
custom-built ontologies; they require more work than I've been giving
them. In our implementation, we've also integrated our entire
digitized card catalog to provide more information for the user for
those objects where data entry hasn't caught up with our paper-based
documentation. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback from users who
appreciate the friendly interface.
Let me know if you have any questions about Delphi. I'd love to see
other museums taking advantage of this great system, and I'm more than
happy to offer our work in ontology building as a starting point for
anyone who's interested.
Michael
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Michael T. Black
[log in to unmask]
Head, Research & Information Systems
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
103 Kroeber Hall
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720-3712
510-642-9164; Fax: 510-642-6844
http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu
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Website News:
Explore and discover the Museum痴 extensive collections using our
recently launched Collections Browser.
Go to http://pahma.berkeley.edu/delphi/ to begin!
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On Jan 21, 2011, at 9:51 AM, Anita Heggli wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> For those of you who DO NOT use eMuseum, but DO have an online
> collections search linked to your TMS database (or linked to a copy
> of your data), what exactly are you using? Are you using a custom
> built program? An out of the box program/service? If custom, what
> programming language is it written in? What were your initial set-
> up costs for the service or staff to create the desired
> functionality/look/feel of the search? What are your average
> yearly costs for maintaining/updating the search as new
> functionality is added?
>
> Thanks in advance for your inupt!
>
> Anita Heggli-Swenson
>
> Registrar
> Ackland Art Museum
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>