The MME is an aggregator service for the contributing museums and organisations. It provides data in a standard format (RIF-CS) and transports this data to the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). This same XML feed can also be downloaded by others interested in the data.

The MME contains collection level descriptions. Collection level descriptions take a different approach to documenting collections. Instead of focussing at the object or item level, it moves up a notch to ‘collection level’. This has the benefit of providing an overview, a meaning and a scope that can be hard to ‘see’ at object level – especially if you were, say, looking for which museums had shoes made in the 1950s and worn in Australia. The other benefit of collection level descriptions is that the objects grouped in this way don’t necessarily need to be online or digitised (yet) in order to be discovered.

The project is funded by ANDS  to ensure that collection level descriptions are added to the Research Data Commons to be used and explored by academic researchers.  The research community, through the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) researchers, will be involved in the evaluation of the initial collections and search terms and this review will inform future developments and collections contributed to the MME. This will ensure that, for the first time, many museum collections of particular interest HASS researchers will be readily discoverable through the ARDC.

Seb Chan, Head Digital and Emerging Technologies, Powerhouse Museum gave a demonstration of the MME Website. Features include:

• New menu to allow Regional Museums to be listed by State. A sample of Regional Museum collections have been added.
• Image grid relating to Museum Victoria collections eg A J Campbell Collection. This feature is possible if an Institution has provided an API for it’s on-line collection.  The image grid will be implemented for the Powerhouse Museum shortly.
• OAI-PMH implemented and tested with National Museum of Australia.  OAI is a metadata standard for the web which allows data to reused.  The NMA has established an OAI repository for it’s collection level descriptions which eliminates the need for manual data entry or import/export from spreadsheets.

Data Submitted by Museums

The committee was delighted that the quota of 700 CLDs had been met and exceeded with 949 collections in the MME at 30 June 2011.

Data Upload to Research Data Australia

MME data has been delivered to the RDA Sandbox and is now undergoing quality assurance by ANDs.  It is anticipated that some adjustments will be required as a result.

Evaluation Workshops

The committee also reported on the first evaluation workshops held in Melbourne with academics from  Monash University and RMIT.  In general, the workshops were very positive about the concept behind the MME ie the inclusion of collection level descriptions online.

• Some of those participating already utilise online museum data and/or visit museums to view collections.
• Those who have not used museum collections to date were impressed with the potential research data which could be brought into the academic domain.
• Most saw the concept of accessing information about museum collections online as ‘fabulous’ and ‘potentially powerful’.
• They also saw its inclusion on Research Data Australia (RDA) as ‘a useful tool at the beginning of a project, to help establish what’s available in a particular field or class of material … and also at its end in allowing researchers to tell others about their work’.
• Comments were received that the collections were not always easy to scan by eye.  Changes. Some changes were made to layout of the MME Website based on this feedback The list view now shows the complete brief description and coverage details.Comments were also received about the search capability of the site.  It was noted that the MME was intended primarily as an aggregating site for Research Data Australia.  More sophisticated search capability may be investigated in the future.

Further evaluation sessions will be undertaken once MME data is available in the RDA.

The first batch of 701 CLDs have been delivered to ANDS.  They will now review the metadata before it is loaded into Research Data Australia.   There may be a few more revisions of the output XML from the MME before this step is complete.

Evaluation Workshops

One evaluation workshop with academics from the HASS Community has been held in Melbourne.  I understand that they were positive about the material presented on the MME Website.  I will pass on their feedback once it is available.

Future Development

Additional development work is in train for the MME.  One of the first will be the expansion of the site to allow for the inclusion of collections from Regional Museums.  I will blog about this and other developments as they occur.

Lynne McNairn
Project Co-ordinator

Image Credits: Collection Powerhouse Museum

By the middle of April 2011 we had 550 collection level descriptions in the MME from 13 of the 16 organisations involved in the initial project.  There are many interesting collections which should intrigue the research community and the site is already generating interest following this article by Seb Chan on his FRESH + NEW (ER) Blog.

Data entry help  has added to this site.  There are three methods of adding data to the MME;

• manual data entry
• upload from text file (Excel)
• XML feed (currently being developed)

Next steps

The next steps are finalising the XML feed into the site and the feed from the MME into the Research Data Commons.  

Planning is underway for the evaluation of the site by the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences researchers.  These evaluation workshops are being co-ordinatored by the Steering Committee and the results will be reported on this site.
Image credit:Collection of vases by Doulton & Co:Collection Powerhouse Museum

As some of you will already know, Julie-Anne Carbon completed her term with the MME last Friday. Julie-Anne was based at Museum Victoria and looked after Australian Centre for the Moving Image, History SA, Museum Victoria, South Australian Museum, Sovereign Hill, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and Western Australian Museum. She did an excellent job working with these organisations and collection level descriptions have been submitted an edited from all of these sites (excepting one site affected by flooding).

Those of you who worked with Julie-Anne will appreciate her cheery laugh and keen sense of humour as well as her practical approach to the work of the MME. Julie-Anne returns to National Gallery of Victoria and I will certainly miss her hard work and input. Any final tidying up from Julie-Anne’s sites will now be completed by me.

Work on the MME continues to progress well. Much of the recent work has concentrated on the development and testing of the repository itself. The site is getting a visual makeover and the steering committee have started planning evaluation workshops with the HASS community. I will put out of more detailed progress report in the near future.

Lynne McNairn
Project Co-ordinator

At the Museum, I met with Christine Tarbett-Buckley, Registrar of Collections, who has been instrumental in ensuring that the MAGNT is represented in the MME. Also attending the meeting were Ilka Schacht (Senior Collections Manager, History and Culture); Regis Martin (Image Resource Officer); Joanna Barrkman (Curator, Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture); Christiane Keller (Curator, Aboriginal Art and Material Culture); Merran Sierakowski (Acting Curator, Visual Art and Craft); Michelle Smith (Curator, Territory History), based in Alice Springs and Suzanne Horner (Technical Officer, Natural Sciences).

MAGNT have joined the project at a later stage than other museums and although this means they have a shorter deadline it gives them the advantage of being able to see the MME repository and look at the collection descriptions already submitted. Looking at the project Ilka described it as “just like a library catalogue only for collections for not books”.

During the meeting we spent some time looking at data submitted by other sites, particularly the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery who are of similar size and complexity to MAGNT. Attendees were interested to see the variety of collections already submitted.

MAGNT were exited by the project and keen to get their collections into the MME and make the research community more aware of the extent and variety of intriguing material held “Up North”.

Image credit: Covered jar, ‘Bush Coconut and Orange’, earthenware, made by Christabelle Rose, Hermannsburg, Northern Territory, Australia, 1991, Collection Powerhouse Museum.

The results will be included in a report to the Steering Committee in early March so it is your opportunity to express your views.

The survey can be accessed here until 5pm on Friday 4th March: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/470305/MME-Data-Gathering-Feedback

It should take around 8 minutes to complete the survey.

Thanks for taking the time give us your feedback about the project!

We are looking forward to working with MAGNT and finding out what interesting material is held up North.

Image credits: ‘Yamba the honey ant’ toy produced by Imparja Television, 1996; Badge from Northern Territory Fire Brigade: Collection Powerhouse Museum

Each participating organisation will be given a login and be able to edit and view their own records as well as view records from other contributors. The repository will enable organisations to upload their data in a variety of ways. Those with the technical capacity will be able establish an OAI interface from their collections database. There is also the ability to upload from an Excel template and lastly people can manually enter and update their records within the repository.

The roll-out of the repository will illustrate one of the aims of the project in that it will apply a standard metadata set across collection level descriptions from wide variety institutions and collections ranging from historical collections, decorative arts and archaeology. And, links to structured sites such as the MME also help improve your ranking in standard Google searches.

The MME repository will provide the OAI feed to the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) who have sponsored this project. The standard data format also provides the capacity for the MME to provide a similar feed to other services such Trove.

Image credits: Feature image – Flickr: ralphbijker Motion gears – team force CC by 2.0; Photographic print, black & white, exterior of house ‘Winrah’ by Milton Kent, Sydney, 1920-1950, Collection Powerhouse Museum