Search Disabled |
|
|
|
Search Options | Help | Site Map | Cultivate Web Site | ||||
|
|
|||||
| Home | Current Issue | Index of Back Issues |
| Issue 3 Home | Editorial | Features | Regular Columns | News & Events | Misc. | ||
By Carlos Wert and Francisca Hernández - January 2001
COVAX (Contemporary Culture Virtual Archive in XML) [1] is an IST funded program, launched as part of the IST first call, corresponding to key action 3 (Multimedia content and tools: cultural heritage and digital content) in the action line III.2.3 (Access to scientific and cultural heritage).
The main purpose of COVAX is to test the use of XML to combine document descriptions and digitised surrogates of cultural documents to build a global system for search and retrieval, increasing accessibility via the Internet to electronic resources, regardless of their location.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
COVAX objectives are :
COVAX's approach to reach these objectives is based on the conversion of existing records into homogeneously-encoded document descriptions of bibliographic records, archive finding aids, museum records and catalogues, and electronic texts and on the application of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and the various Document Type Descriptions (DTD) currently being used for library materials descriptions (MARC DTD), archives finding aids (EAD), museum materials (AMICO DTD) and electronic versions of cultural texts (TEIlite).
COVAX is designed to form a network of XML repositories as a distributed database to be accessed as a single one and will act as a meta-search engine, offering access to book references, finding aids, facsimile images, museum items, etc.. COVAX is constructing a multilingual user interface to access such data and will deal with different kinds of data (catalogue records, finding aids…) and with different kinds of materials (manuscripts, prints, graphic materials, digital images, electronic texts…)
The project does not intend to create standards but to lie on the adoption of existing standards and concepts (XML, DTDs already in use, http…), using Z39.50 protocol as a conceptual basis for communication between multilingual user interface and meta-search engine and Dublin Core Metadata Element Set elements as cross domain access points.
The project duration is 24 months, it started in January 2000 and the partners includes content owners (Memory institutions) and technological partners (developers: public RTD centres and private companies). The Project Co-ordinator is Residencia de Estudiantes (Spain) and the partners Angewandte InformationsTechnik Forschungsgesellschaft mbH. and Salzburg Research (Austria), Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden), Software AG España, S.A., Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and Biblioteca de Menéndez Pelayo (Spain), LASER (London and South Eastern Library Region, UK), and ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment, Italy)
The first months of the project were devoted to the design of the system, the conversion of existing records, and the software development for version 1 of COVAX prototype. The first design tasks were to define a coherent sample of records and documents from content owners partners, to analyse existing DTDs and select the appropriate ones, and to propose a common information structure.
A comprehensive set of documents for the prototype were selected containing a wide variety of documents, descriptions, formats and databases: standard and non standard bibliographic records (including five different MARC formats), four different structures for archive and museum finding aids and information in six different languages (Catalan, Italian, English, German, Spanish, Swedish).
COVAX is intended to satisfy needs of general public as well as professional users. User requirements are basically structured around these criteria:
In the system definition, a crucial point was the selection of the DTDs to be used to convert in XML documents bibliographic, archival and museum data existing in content providers original databases. The decision was made on the basis of the State of the Art studies developed in the early stages of the project, that included a view on XML standards, projects, software, etc. From the beginning, the possibility of creating specific DTDs for COVAX was rejected, and the DTDs created by institutions with important standardisation capabilities were adopted (the above mentioned MARC DTD, EAD, AMICO DTD and TEIlite). COVAX team has assumed that the influence, or even visibility of the project, was strongly related with the relevance of the standards adopted. The use of DTDs maintained by standardisation bodies permits also the use of a set of tools and procedures that will facilitate the adoption of XML by little or mid-size Memory Institutions that doesn’t have so much specialised personnel or resources. All mentioned DTDs has been adapted to be converted from SGML to XML DTDs.
Once data structures to be used were defined, the partners began the conversion from original records, although there are differences among types of descriptions. Archival finding aids, museum descriptions and a part of the electronic texts included in the prototype were created directly in EAD, AMICO or TEIlite. The major conversion problem lies in the conversion of bibliographic records that present up to five different MARC formats (IBERMARC, UNIMARC, UKMARC, CATMARC, LIBRIS-MARC). It’s been necessary to plan different conversion processes: from original formats to MARC 21 (the basis of MARC DTD) using tools owned by the partners or by means of USEMARCON. In other cases, conversions were made directly, producing the adequate code, from original data structures to MARC DTD. For records converted to USMARC, a free software provided by the Library of Congress, MARCONV, will be used to transform them to MARC DTD.
A second main issue was to establish access points to records contained in COVAX databases. It was necessary to define common access points for archival, librarian and museum descriptions, in order to make available information search and retrieval through the pertinent elements of each DTD in use. The elements defined in Dublin Core Metadata Element Set provided a solution for this problem. Initially, Dublin Core metadata were defined for the description of electronic resources on the Internet, and resulted in a simple and general way to do such description. These features were suitable for any kind of description and make Dublin Core 15 basic elements very useful when intended to retrieve information from heterogeneous descriptions, as it occurs with those based on DTDs mentioned above. Consequently, the team has made the equivalence between COVAX DTDs elements and Dublin Core ones. Another advantage of Dublin Core is that it has already incorporated BIB-1 attribute list and then it is compliant with a Z39.50 model.
The use of Z39.50 protocol for search and retrievalhis is one of COVAX design main features. From the early stages of system definition, the implementation of Z39.50 model (protocol for searches in distributed databases) was considered of crucial importance. This feature may strengthened the project and contribute to assure the future application of its results. To achieve this, COVAX will use XML Encoding Rules, created as a mechanism for the inter-operability between Z39.50 systems and Web/Internet systems. In fact, the process initiated by the project will permit to incorporate COVAX to Z39.50 universe, once W3C publishes the requirements to make XML queries using Z39.50 model.
COVAX partners have established two different database models: native XML databases and access to existing non-XML repositories to retrieve information from the original database and transform it on XML documents in the moment of presenting it to users.
In the preceding paragraphs we have presented the current situation of the project. To summarise, COVAX is not only incorporating XML as a basic standard but also integrating other standards, adapting them to XML. But XML world is rapidly evolving and some changes and/or new features can be incorporated as COVAX progresses. That supposes the need of an important concertation activity with similar projects. Other strategic question for the future of the project is to take into account exploitation issues.
COVAX will test the advantages of XML as a way to encode and process cultural heritage information, explore the feasibility of converting existing cultural heritage descriptions into XML encoded information, adapt cultural information systems to user requirements and contribute to the extension of some standards for presentation and dissemination of cultural heritage.
Ultimately, it will enhance access to cultural heritage (one of Europe’s most important competitive advantages) for all citizens. All those aspects reflect the interests of COVAX partners that we think are shared by most of European Memory Institutions and by the European Commission.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Carlos Wert and Francisca Hernández
Residencia de Estudiantes.
Pinar, 23
28006. Madrid, Spain.
ile@interlink.es
URL: <http://www.covax.org/>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For citation purposes:
Wert, C and Hernández, F. "COVAX Project ", Cultivate Interactive, issue
3, 29 January 2001
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue3/covax/>
|
|