A Moving Experience: Thirteen Years and Two Million Objects Later

The Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution began preparing and moving its ethnographic and archeological collections, consisting of two million specimens, to an off-site storage facility in 1983. The move was necessitated by continual museum accessions and diminishing available storage space, resulting in overcrowded conditions. Thirteen years later, the anthropology move is nearing completion. This article documents some of the circumstances that precipitated the collection move. It also delineates the procedures that evolved and some of the lessons learned. Experience showed that adequate training of staff was essential to the success of the project. Bar code technology was implemented to streamline tracking of objects and inventory control. With the completion of the anthropology move, the collections care is significantly improved on many levels, but challenges lie ahead because the new storage facility is nearing capacity.     

Hyperactive Grey Objects

Previous papers on grey literature by the authors have described (1) the need for formal metadata to allow machine understanding and therefore scalable operations; (2) the enhancement of repositories of grey (and other) e-publications by linking with CRIS (Current Research Information Systems); (3) the use of the research process to collect metadata incrementally reducing the threshold barrier for end-users and improving quality in an ambient GRIDs environment. This paper takes the development one step further and proposes “intelligent” grey objects. The hypothesis is in 2 parts: (1) that the use of passive catalogs of metadata does not scale (a) in a highly distributed environment with millions of nodes and (b) with vastly increased volumes of R&D output grey publications with associated metadata; (2) that a new paradigm is required that (a) integrates grey with white literature and other R&D outputs such as software, data, products and patents (b) in a self-managing, self-optimizing way and that this paradigm manages automatically curation, provenance digital rights, trust, security and privacy. Concerning (1) existing repositories provide catalogs; harvesting takes increasing time ensuring non-currency. The end-user expends much manual effort/intelligence to utilize the results. The elapsed time of (1) the network (2) the centralized (or centrally controlled distributed) catalog server searches (3) end-user intervention becomes unacceptable. Concerning (2) there is no paradigm currently known to the authors that satisfies the requirement. Our proposal is outlined below. Hyperactive combines both hyperlinking and active properties of a (grey) object. Hyperlinking implies multimedia components linked to form the object and also external links to other resources. The term active implies that objects do not lie passively in a repository to be retrieved by end-users. They “get a life” and the object moves through the network knowing where it is going. A hyperactive grey object is wrapped by its (incrementally recorded) formal metadata and an associated (software) agent. It moves through process steps such as initial concept, authoring, reviewing and depositing in a repository. The workflow is based on the rules and information in the corporate data repository with which the agent interacts. Once the object is deposited, the agent associated with it actively pushes the object to the end-users (or systems) whose metadata indicate interest or an obligation in a workflowed process. The agents check the object and user (or system) metadata for rights, privacy, security parameters, and for any charges and assure compatibility. Alternatively the object can be found passively by end-user or system agents. The object can also associate itself with other objects forming relationships utilising metadata or content. Declared relationships include references and citations; workflowed relationships include versions and also links to corporate information and research datasets and software; inferenced relationships are discovered relationships such as between documents by different authors developed from an earlier idea of a third author. Components of this paradigm have been implemented to some extent. The challenge is implementing—respecting part two of the hypothesis—the integration architecture. This surely is harnessing the power of grey.

试论博物馆学的研究对象

人类自从诞生以来,就一直处于和舛傲不训的自然界的抗争之中。迄今的研究成果表明,远在几千年前,人类就产生了保存与自然界抗争及在社会活动中有意义、有价值物品的愿望。斗转星移几多世纪,随着社会的演化发展,人类的上述愿望终于出现了一种物质的载体,用以收藏文化、生物等实物,这就是博物馆的诞生。社会不断发展,博物馆越益增多,门类越来越全,分工越过越细,不断演变,终成洋洋大观,博物馆成了人类生活中的一个不可分割的组成部分。对于博物馆这一人类社会不可分割又相对独立的部分,不能不激起人们研究的兴趣。因其不可分割,它便有了与社会…     

博物馆与实物

一、“实物”与“博物馆”与“直观性”、“广博性”这样一些概括相比,“实物性”的概念更准确地反映博物馆独特和鲜明的个性。的确,在人类文化生活中我们很难看到象博物馆这样关注实物,并把自己几乎全部工作都建诸于实物基础之上的机构。实物是博物馆一切活动的基础和出发点,收藏和利用实物构成了博物馆的本质特征。所以,是否收藏和利用实物就成了我们判断和确定博物馆的主要依据。从历史发展的角度来看,博物馆的形态与职能在人类漫长的文明演进中几经变化,其外延和内涵有着重大的差别。然而,无论是早期满足个人和小团体的藏珍所,…     

E-learning环境下学习对象的组织及其知识库建设研究

在全面阐述国内外学习对象组织建设发展现状的基础上,深入分析我国学习对象资源组织建设方面存在的问题,指出构建学习对象知识库是学习对象资源组织的主要途径,提出我国学习对象知识库的构建原则与总体框架,对学习对象知识库建设中涉及的元数据、内容封装、互操作等关键技术进行具体分析,同时明确建立学习对象知识库联盟的观点。     

数据清洗研究综述

对数据清洗问题进行综述。介绍数据清洗问题产生的背景和国内外研究现状。给出数据清洗的定义和对象，说明数据清洗的基本原理、模型，分析相关算法与工具，给出数据清洗评估方法；并对今后数据清洗的研究和应用进行展望。     

数字对象的唯一标识符技术

在数字信息环境中, 唯一标识符承担着唯一地和永久地确认数字对象、并将它们与其它数字对象或服务系统连接起来的功能。本文简要介绍唯一标识符的功能、要求和基本框架, 以及主要的唯一标识符系统。     

论图书馆法的调整对象

本文评介了我国图书馆学界关于图书馆法调整对象的几种主要观点，分析了我国图书馆法调整对象的具体内容和法律特征，进而探讨了图书馆法的定义和法律地位。     

数字信息资源的编目对象

从确认编目对象的角度探讨数字信息资源的编目方法与技术，可以认识到数字信息资源与其他类型的文献信息资源的差别，从而选择适当层次的编目对象及其相应的编目方法与技术。信息资源的数字化把各种载体形式的文献资源融为一体，使人们有可能在表现方式的层次上描述数字信息资源。     

数字对象的存储与传输

数字对象按被使用时的表现形态可分为四大类:静态文档对象、流媒体对象、复合数字对象和交互式对象,不同的数字对象对应着不同的传输形式,这一特点决定了数字对象需要不同类型的服务器;在对象服务器内部 ,数字对象的命名体系和寻址方式决定了服务器的可维护性和可扩充性,文章给出了一个零维护解决方案;数字对象的打包和传输方式影响着客户的使用质量和为此付出的成本,本文同时给出了一个文档对象的打包形式和传输方式;最后说明了一个数字对象服务器的实现     

关于文献分类学研究对象问题的思考

文献分类学是研究图书馆文献分类的原理、方法、规律和应用等问题,以方便人们按学科知识系统管理和利用文献的一门学科。文献分类学的研究对象主要是文献分类法或是网络信息分类法,这两种观点值得商榷。     

From Learning Communities to Learning Objects

ABSTRACT

A distance learning librarian shares her experience as a member of a faculty learning community devoted to technology innovation in education. Participants in the learning community include faculty from a range of disciplines all working on projects to enhance student learning through instructional technology. The librarian was selected to participate in the community to develop online learning objects using Camtasia. In addition to discussing the practical considerations of developing the learning objects, the poster session will focus on the learning community experience. How did collaboration and dialogue with other faculty affect the project? What did the librarian's participation and unique perspective contribute to the learning community as a whole? Finally, recommendations for establishing similar formal or informal learning communities will be offered.