Chapter 2 Slide 1 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Subject

Chapter 2. Slide 1 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Subject Gateways § Started as links of lists § Continued as Web directories § Culminated into quality-controlled resource discovery systems § Criteria: quality, descriptions, browsing capabilities

Chapter 2. Slide 2 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Building a Subject Gateway To provide the full-fledged services of a subject gateway you need to resolve: § Strategic issues § Information issues § Technical issues

Chapter 2. Slide 3 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Strategic Issues § Focus on a subject as narrow as human resources and funding dictate § Design a professional software project § Employ a balanced number of domain experts and IT technicians For details see: http: //www. desire. org/handbook/

Chapter 2. Slide 4 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Information Issues § Define quality criteria for resource inclusion § Share criteria with cataloguers and perhaps users § Select metadata scheme for cataloguing § Think big: consider future interoperability issues with other gateways For details on metadata and interoperability see: http: //www. ifla. org/II/metadata. htm

Chapter 2. Slide 5 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Technical Issues (1/3) § Define an information model that can capture the multitude of resources you are addressing § Utilise “intelligent” tools for semi-automatic resource discovery § Define and implement personalised views for your data § Define and implement a resource inclusion model

Chapter 2. Slide 6 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Technical Issues (2/3) § Is there an optimal resource inclusion model for Internet resources? § Data Warehousing over the Web: collect and mirror material BUT: § how often should you update? § what about copyright issues? § Federated Virtual Database over the Web: identify, catalogue and delegate to original source BUT: § how easy is to write “wrappers”? § how can you anticipate future resource formats?

Chapter 2. Slide 7 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Technical Issues (3/3) § Future technical developments towards automatic subject gateway creation: § Development of Web-based information discovery agents § Development of mediator layers that will support transparent interoperability § Development of dynamic wrappers § Development of uniform architectures for user annotations § Development of uniform user-modelling schemes supporting roaming user profiles and communities

Chapter 2. Slide 8 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Generation Next: Gateway Services § Next generation subject gateways will compete on extra services, e. g. § multilingual user interfaces § translation services § resource monitoring for changes § user involvement § interoperability for single-point queries

Chapter 2. Slide 9 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Selective Internet Guide Information from usual search engines lead often to: § Non existing/non updated sites § Sites of commercial publicity § Information not free of charge § Many steps required to access really relevant information Selective Internet Guide is an Internet based service allowing to: § Identify and access rapidly most relevant Web sites § Provide up-to-date information free of charge

Chapter 2. Slide 10 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Characteristics of Selective Internet Guide § Web sites selected by experienced staff § Information accessible according to: § Hierarchical subject - oriented structure § The level of the web page referred to (Portal, home page, etc. ) § List of the main types of the problems § The country to which they are related

Chapter 2. Slide 11 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Subject Oriented Gateway § It is following the links found in the Selective Internet Guide § When user specifies keywords, it automatically follows the links trough 3 steps from the sites selected by the means of the Selective Internet Guide to other relevant web - pages This tool is a software system, based and developed by Danish Technical Knowledge Center and Library and Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Chapter 2. Slide 12 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Software Aspects The main components of the system: § COMBINE – a robot for harvesting of web resources § ZEBRA – an indexing and search tool § YAZ – the interface between COMBINE and ZEBRA

Chapter 2. Slide 13 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS The Principles of Operation § Distributed data collection (servers having the areas of responsibility) § Usage of hyper – links found in the page for the feedback into the harvester § Indexing of all records in data base § Locally configurable user interface § Result in a hit – list: showing a summary information plus a direct link to the resource

CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Chapter 2. Slide 14 Combine It consist of three parts: § Cabin – the part controlling the robot itself § Harvester: § gets a URL § checks it § sends to one or more data base § Harvesting Database (HDB) – the part where resources are collected for future processing

Chapter 2. Slide 15 CULTURAL SUBJECT GATEWAYS Example of Application in the Fields of Culture The framework CULTURLINK (Zagreb/Croatia): Portal containing Subject oriented gateway services: § Access to selected web sites § Structuring the links in a multi – level hierarchy § Presenting evaluated description of web sites § Providing full – text search tools