Transcript GNM-DMS - The CIDOC CRM

The GNM-DMS
a Document Management System
for the Germanische Nationalmuseum
Martin Doerr, ICS-Forth
Siegfried Krause, GNM
April 2004
GNM-DMS, the Idea

Breaking up Rigid Structures:
(The GNM is a heterogeneous research organization, not an object
administrator, with 15 departments, 1.5 million objects)
–
–
–
–
–

Maintain object documentation as XML documents
Reduce rigid database structures to minimum
Increase flexibility for dedicated structures
Apply a flexible approach to vocabulary control
Consistency enforcement, without imposing workflow, requires very
careful analysis and algorithms
Integrating the Past and the Future:
– Retrospective documentation
– System migration
– Digital preservation are integral part of the concept

Deliberately slow development for extensive field tests
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
2
GNM-DMS, current stage:
 Object documentation integrated with object entry,
in use at client site
– revised version in daily use since one year.
– Registrar’s office, research departments (collections) with multiple XMLDTDs
– Vocabulary control: mandatory, open list of terms and scope notes.
Retrospective documentation

Object move, loan in/out, accession,de-accession,
photographic documentation
– System migration, digital preservation are integral part of the concept
– Monitoring, rather than imposing work-flow
– Prototype tested at user site
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
3
Museum DMS Purpose
Capture all facets of the knowledge about the museum objects,
providing consistency and integrity control of objects,
documents and referred concepts
Administrational tasks (functions)
– Accession, Document Initialization
– Loan-In, Loan-Out, Movement (Location tracking)
Scientific
tasks (functions)
– Inventory document management (collective objects, merge, split,
change of inventory number, retrospective documentation)
– Documentation phase
•
•
•
•
Relations between objects
Semantic linking of objects and other documents
Search - retrieve
Use of Thesaurus (person, place, period, object type)
– Electronic publishing
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
4
WEB Browser
Server side
Administration
User Interface
Client side
Document
Initialization
iFS: Document
Repository
Accession
Scientific
User Interface
Document
Search
Object Relations
Thesaurus
XML Document Editor
Master Catalogue:
Document Index
FTP Protocol
Download
Upload
Oracle
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
5
Thesaurus
Dept.2
Semantic
relations
Dept.1
<?xml version=“1.0”>
Dept.3
Scientific
part
Administration
part
<Accession>
….
</Accession>
<Loan>
….
</Loan>
XML Documents
Identification
part
Consistency
relations
Master Catalogue
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
6
Documentation facets

Scientific part
– Object type, object title, object history, subject depicted, material
and technique, mark and inscription etc.

Administration part
– Accession, location, de-accession, loan in, loan out

Identification part
– Object related: Inventory number, accession number, department
– Document related: document identifier, version, author
– Registrar’s information: core documentation for administration
purposes
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
7
Consistency and Integrity control

Thesaurus: museum knowledge
–
–
–
–

Person
Place
Period
Object type
Master catalogue: consistency and integrity
control mechanism
– Museum object
– XML documents
– Correlations
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
8
GNM-DMS, functional modules

Document administration module
– Creation and maintenance of documents stored in the Internet File System (iFS)
– Interaction with document repository
– Generation of inventory numbers
– File access: document retrieval, store update, lock, unlock.

Correlation and consistency management module
– Ensures coherent correlation between identification identifiers of museum objects
(accession number, inventory number)
– Maintains the amendment history of information (old inventory numbers)
– Ensures consistent update of master-catalogue and the identification information
stored in inventory documents

Search module
– Retrieval of inventory documents
– Access to both administrational and scientific information
– Support of full text search and text retrieval on specified tags of the XML
inventory documents
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
9
GNM-DMS, User Interface

User Interface design: two level approach
– Administrational information handling: Web browser user interface
guides the document management
• Registrar’s office interface (provides access to all the necessary
administrational information, exclusively managed by the registrar’s
office)
• Department curator interface (provides access to all the necessary
scientific information, managed by the dept. curator)
– Object documentation: Customized XML editor guides and simplifies
the documentation process
 System Administrator Interface
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
10
GNM-DMS, Web browser UI
Banner
Toolbar
List of
Work
areas
List of documents
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
11
GNM-DMS, XML Editor
Customized
menu
Automatic insertion of
inventory document
information units
Edit the selected
information unit
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
12
GNM-DMS, Critical Algorithms

Inventory number changes for Retro inventory
documents

Inventory splitting – merging issues
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
13
Inventory number changes for Retro
inventory documents



During the transcription of paper-based
information: two different objects may refer to the
same identification number (conflict cases)
GNM-DMS: can recognize all conflict cases and
provides means to solve them
Describing the problem: two states, two museum
objects
object A
object B
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
14
True conflict case
object A
object B
X1
X1
X1
X1
Querying the
object with old
identification
information is
retained
System response:
Save X1 to othernumbers and assign
system generated inv#
to
identify object B
object A
object B
X1
X1
X1
Sys-Inv#
X1
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
15
Typing mistake in database
object A
object B
object A
object B
X1
X2
X1
X2
X2
Sys-Inv#
X2
object A
object B
X2
object A
X2
object B
X1
X2
X1
X2
X1
X2
X1
Sys-Inv#
X2
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
16
Merge – Split Issues



A lot of time after an object’s acquisition, causes of
considering the object as two (or more) different
ones, may be raised.
One the other, research can prove that two (or more
objects) should have been considered as one.
System keeps track of the objects merge – split
history:
– providing a rollback channel in case of new research results,
– considering that an extracted object may belong to a new collection,
– considering that a lot of the info of the extracted/merged document,
already exists in the system,
– strictly storing all the numbers under which material may have been
referred in GNM-DMS.
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
17
Split Algorithm
Split of inventory document
with Number Glf20001
New inventory document
produced with number Glf20045
Old Number (due to Split)
Glf20001
XML Ref: “extracted from”
XML Ref: “has extracted”
“Parent” inventory
document retains its number
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
18
Merge Algorithm
Merge inventory document
with Number Glf20076 …
… to inventory document
with Number Glf20001 …
Old Number (due to Merge)
Glf20001
Invalid and Read-Only document
with number Glf20076
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
19
Split – Merge Example
Inv. Number
Glf20005
Inv. Number
Glf20006
Inv. Number
Glf20005
Inv. Number
Glf20007
?
Old Numbers
Glf20006 (Merge)
? Glf20007 (Merge)
Glf20032 (Split)
?
?
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Old Numbers
Old Numbers
Old Numbers
Glf20005 (Merge) Glf20005 (Merge) Glf20005 (Merge)
Glf20006 (Merge) Glf20006 (Merge)
Glf20007 (Merge)
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Old Numbers
Glf20005 (Merge)
Glf20006 (Merge)
Glf20007 (Merge)
Pool of Invalid
Documents
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
20
Split – Merge Example
Validation Date:
10/10/2000
Inv. Number
Glf20005
Split Date:
02/02/2001
Old Numbers
Glf20006 (Merge)
Glf20007 (Merge)
Glf20032 (Split)
From:
08/11/2000
Inv. Number
Glf20005
?
?
?
………
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Merge Date:
08/11/2000
To:
02/02/2001
?
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Inv. Number
Glf20032
Old Numbers
Glf20005 (Merge)
Old Numbers
Glf20005 (Merge)
Glf20006 (Merge)
Glf20007 (Merge)
Old Numbers
Glf20005 (Merge)
Glf20006 (Merge)
Glf20007 (Merge)
From:
10/10/2000
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
To:
08/11/2000
21
Critical Algorithms
…Complete analysis implemented
and documented …
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
22
Conclusions

The object documentation as documents satisfies
the curators, helps digital preservation and
reduces the development cost

Report writing and precise queries become more
complex, whereas information retrieval becomes
very simple

The use of leading edge technology, particularly
XML WYSIWYG editors, requires flexibility from
developers and clients – though technology
stabilizes rapidly

Respect of the local organization culture is a key
to success
Centre for Cultural Informatics, ICS - FORTH - Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg
23