Open source glam tools for building sustainable cultural heritage and digital humanities infrastructures

Open source GLAM tools for building
sustainable DCH & DH infrastructures
Roxanne Wyns
Roxanne.Wyns@kuleuven.be

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Short intro
GLAM tools for sustainable CH & DH infrastructures

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On the agenda
• From Collection Management to Online Access
• Digital infrastructures and projects
• Best practices
Source: dilbert.com

From Collection Management to Online Access

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Digital project workflow
Dr. Lynda Sayce prepares a manuscript in the
Alamire Digital Lab in Vatican City.
© Veerle Francke - Alamire

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GLAM infrastructure overview
Coll.MS CMS
DAM/
LTP
Collection management system
- Metadata creation and management
(master files)
- Closed system (access rights)
- Metadata is pushed to public portal
DAM / LTP
- Ingest of files + metadata
- PID
- Visualisation view
er
Admin
UI
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Public Access portal / CMS
Additional content such as
news, story's, …
Metadata
for publication
Descriptive &
administrative metadata
Physical & Digital born items

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Creation of metadata

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Coll.MS CMS
DAM/
LTP view
er
Admin
UI
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Descriptive &
Metadata
for publication

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Metadata at libraries, archives and
museums
• Domain specific description and export standards
• Often with (small) adaptations to fit specific needs
• Exports in different formats

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Metadata in the Arts, Social Sciences
and Humanities
• No tradition of using descriptive standards
• Data models according to researchers needs
• Can be based on common principles within the research domain
• Increase of data sharing thanks to VRIs

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A Collections Management System is software used to organize,
control, and manage collections of objects by describing all information
related to and about those objects.
• Commercial systems
• Open Source systems
• Client installations
• Cloud-based systems

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LIBIS Collection management layer
• Alma for libraries
• MARC standard
• CollectiveAccess
• Flexible data model
• Standard of choice
• Scope for archives
• Archival standards such as
ISAD(G), ISAAR, EAD …
• …

Long-term preservation and access
Lot’s of data is unique and can only be captured once

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Long-term preservation and access
Source: Libray of Congress

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Digital Asset Management & Preservation
Coll.MS CMS
DAM/
LTP view
er
Admin
UI
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Descriptive &
Metadata
for publication

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Preservation at libraries, archives
and museums
• Have preservation as one of their core functions
• But are still focused on traditional materials
• This also relates to the allocation of resources
• Storage and long term preservation concepts are still often mixed
Source: pinterest.comSource: bucklinbuildings.com

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Preservation of research data in the
Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities
• Most Humanities researchers do not think in terms of data
• Limited data sharing and reuse
• Problem of ownership
An engraving of the human heart by Lambert Blendeff,
from the elaborately illustrated lecture notes ‘Physica’
(1686-1687) by Balthasar Cox.
© KU Leuven - Dieter Daemen and Bruno Vandermeulen

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Storage vs. Long-term preservation
• Digital Asset Management (DAM)
• Store, organize, find, retrieve and share digital files
• Long-term preservation (LTP) of digital files according to ISO OAIS
reference model
• Authenticity, unicity and integrity of files
• Ingest, Storage, Data management, Administration, Preservation planning, Persistent access

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LIBIS preservation & access layer
LIAS ingester
Lias
Uploader

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Masters and derivativesRosetta Long-term preservation software

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Persistent accessLIBIS resolver service

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Viewer applicationsResolvable URL http://resolver.libis.be/IE3562253/representation

Data discovery and digital access

25

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Coll.MS CMS
DAM/
LTP view
er
Admin
UI
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Admin
UI
Front
- end
Descriptive &
Metadata
for publication

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Webpublising & data sharing at
GLAM institutes
General types of access
• Data discovery
• Distributed access
• Storytelling and virtual exhibits
• User engagement
Tools
• Often from same software provider as their Coll.MS
• (Limited) movement towards Open Source (Drupal, Omeka)
• Growing popularity of Google Cultural Institute
tellyourphtostory.be - Europeana Space Photography Pilot

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Webpublising & data sharing in the Arts,
Social Sciences and Humanities
General types of access
• Limited to specific individuals/groups
• Through a public web interface
• Download in a machine readable format
• Collaborative environments (VRIs)
Tools
• Lot’s of custom development

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LIBIS access layer
LIAS ingester
Lias
Uploader

Digital infrastructures and projects

Centre for Agrarian History
CAG

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CAG – Tools & infrastructure
LIAS ingester
Lias
Uploader

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CollectiveAccess (Providence)
• Web cataloguing application
• Flexible data modeling according to standards
• Extensive management options via UI
• Suitable for collaboration
• Open source (https://github.com/collectiveaccess)
• Open system (MySQL database, XML, API, OAI-PMH)
• SQL & Elasticsearch
http://www.collectiveaccess.org/

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CollectiveAccess Het Virtuele Land
CollectiveAccess demo (test system)

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Omeka
• Flexible web publishing platform for GLAM, scholarly collections and
virtual exhibitions
• User friendly back-end
• Lot’s of plug-ins
• Open system (MySQL database, XML, API, OAI-PMH)
• SQL & Solr facet browsing
• Open source (https://github.com/omeka/Omeka), strong (developer)
community
http://omeka.org/

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Omeka website Het Virtuele Landhetvirtueleland.be

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Het Virtuele Land – Image databasehetvirtueleland.be

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Het Virtuele Land - Storieshetvirtueleland.be

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Het Virtuele Land - Storieshetvirtueleland.be

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Preservation and access Het Virtuele Land
http://www.hetvirtueleland.be
Wenskaart met bakkersmeisje, 1880 - 1914 © Bakkerijmuseum

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Preservation and access Het Virtuele Land
http://www.hetvirtueleland.be
Wenskaart met bakkersmeisje, 1880 - 1914 © Bakkerijmuseum

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Europeana Food & Drink exhibitions
Cake? Cake!

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Europeana Giphy
Gify Cake? Cake!

Integrated Database for Early Music
IDEM project

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Integrated Database for Early Music project
Alamire Foundation
• International Centre for the Study of
Music in the Low Countries
• Research on medieval music
manuscripts
Hercules call 2013
• Flemish investment fund for research
infrastructures
• Proposal accepted, budget heavily
reduced
IDEM project
Manuscript illumination.
Probably created by the workshop of Petrus Alamire for the
Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Lady in 's-Hertogenbosch
(around 1530’s).
Source: idemdatabase.org

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IDEM – Project budget
• Main budget preserved for storage &
long term preservation
• Limited resources for database,
website, and viewer
• No budget for post-project
maintenance and support
Budget cut on post-project
maintenance influenced the
selection of tools

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IDEM - Selection of tools
Reuse a combination of existing
tools in a flexible way
Use open source where possible to
limit the license costs
Share the development costs with
projects with similar interests
LIBIS services and tools
Clear communication on pros
& cons of offered tools and
total cost of ownership

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IDEM - Tools & infrastructure
LIAS ingester
Lias
Uploader

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IDEM – Data details
• Alamire had 15 TB “ready” for ingest in 2014
• But, clean up actions required
• Master: RAW (EIP), TIFF
• Derivative: JPEG 2000
• Data growth: + 15 TB each year
Source: B-Br-ms-228 (view on idemdatabase.org)

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IDEM – Viewer requirements
• Quick, without loss of quality
• Easy navigation within manuscript
• Full screen, tool bars should take up limited space
• Extensive zooming options in a single and fluid movement, focused
on selected area
• Easily compare folio’s from different manuscripts in a single view
• ...
NL-SH-ms-72A D-Mbs-ms-Mus.ms.-F

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IDEM – Selection of IIIF Mirador viewer

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Sources: iiif.io, projectmirador.org, idemdatabase.org, Mirador demo

Lectio - Magister Dixit project

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Magister Dixit - Tools & infrastructure
LIAS ingester
Drive
Library
Network
Drive

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Magister Dixit project
• Leuven Centre for the Study of the
Transmission of Texts and Ideas in
Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance
• Digitization and virtual
reconstruction of Lecture notes
from Leuven
• Online access to the collection for
research purposes
LIBISnet Gebruikersdag 2016
Tractatus De Actibus Humanis (1733)

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Magister Dixit projectPartners
Met de steun van
An engraving of the human hart from the lecture notes ‘Physica’ (1686-1687)
by Balthasar Cox.

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Magister Dixit projectMetadata in Alma

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Data details
• 331 complex objects
• ca. 110.000 files
• 4,7 TB
• Master files:
• TIFF
• Derivative copies:
• JPEG
• JPEG2000
• PDF
Digital preservation with Teneo

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Lectio & Magister Dixit
Old Lectio website

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Lectio & Magister Dixit
New organization & Project website with Omeka - lectio.ghum.kuleuven.be

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Simple management of web pages

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Simple management of web pages

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Access to the Magister Dixit collection
Metadata in Omeka

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Metadata in Omeka

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Link to Limo

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Magister Dixit collection in Limo

NaBuCCo
The Neo-Babylonian Cuneiform Corpus

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NaBuCCo – Tools & infrastructure
• Text oriented database and website of Babylonian sources
• Extensive relational metadata model focused on research of texts
content
• Web access for researchers, also attractive for wider audiences

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NaBuCCo – CollectiveAccess
GLAM tools for sustainable CH & DH infrastructuresDemo: Test database

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NaBuCCo – Omeka websitehttp://nabucco.arts.kuleuven.be/

Chinese Christian Texts Database
CCT

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CCT – Tools & infrastructure
• Chinese Christian Texts Database of the Sinology research unit
• Research on primary and secondary sources concerning the cultural
contacts between China and Europe
• Chinese (+ pinyin), western languages
• Migration from MARC standard to relational data structure
Providence +
Pawtucket

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CCT - CollectiveAccess
GLAM tools for sustainable CH & DH infrastructuresDemo: Test database

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DigitalHusserl
• Husserl archive - Centre for Phenomenology & Continental
Philosophy
• Project funded by the Hercules foundation
• Collaborative research environment with tools to create
virtual editions, collaboratively annotate and transcribe
Husserl's work (stenographs)
• Extra attention for sustainability

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DigitalHusserl - Tools & infrastructure
LIAS ingester
Lias
Uploader
OA

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Annotations in Mirador

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Aezel project
LGGI
• Limburgs Genealogisch en
Geschiedkundig Informatiecentrum
Aezel project project
• Goal: Bringing together the distributed
heritage of the South of the
Netherlands through digitization.
Providing online access to all
collected resources.

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Aezel project
FASE I
• Set-up of infrastructure
• CollectiveAccess database according
to new datamodel
• Omeka website
• OpenGeo suite & GeoExplorer
• One look & feel for all applications
• Data mapping and migration
• Filetransfer mechanism
Fase I

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DigitalHusserl - Tools & infrastructure
DAM

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Aezel projectCollectiveAccess

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Aezel projectCollectiveAccess

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Aezel projectGeoExplorer

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Omeka-S
• Central management of multiple
sites and users
• Extension of the metadata model
• Enrichment with vocabularies and
authority files
• LOD publication
• Modular
• Responsive (mobile)
Fase II Omeka-S (http://omeka.org/s/)

Best practices for DCH & DH infrastructures

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Infrastructure projects - Some basic
principles
• Specify your requirements
• Foresee an appropriate IT budget
• Contact a technical partner
• Think in (iterative) phases
• Post-project sustainability

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Infrastructure - Some basic principles
• Different systems should work independently from each other
• Different systems should be able to communicate with each other
• Use existing tools in a flexible way, but take into account it’s original
purpose
• Document your data model, environment, …

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Open Source - Some basic principles
• Many different license types
• Maturity and quality of the
software
• Available documentation
• Activity of the community
• Contribute to the community
• Open source doesn’t mean free
(total cost of ownership)
Source: Best practices for using open source software

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Thank you!
Questions?
From the lecture note ‘Physica’ (1686-1687) by Balthasar Cox
Roxanne Wyns - Roxanne.Wyns@kuleuven.be

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