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By Cary Karp - May 2001
In November 2000 the Museum Domain Management Association (MuseDoma) announced the approval of its proposal to establish dot-museum as a restricted top-level domain name on the Internet. The approval was made by the board of directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organisation that provides oversight for domain names.
In this article Cary Karp, Director of Internet Strategy and Technology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and the President of the Museum Domain Management Association, explains why we need this new top level domain, details its evolution and gives the implications for Europe.
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The massive brick-and-mortar edifices that are normally associated with the word "museum" are an easily recognised attribute of the urban landscape. Any such institution housed in quarters that do not correspond to the stereotype can easily reassure the public about its identity with a label near the doorway containing the familiar "museum" string of letters (or, of course, any number of equivalents to it using other languages and character sets). Museums have long since established annexes in the utterly intangible world of the Internet and, although such things as Web sites have an even greater need for clear labels, there is no digital way to convey the authority of the name of a museum that is graven in stone on its grand façade. Translated into technojargon, if on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog, on the Internet nobody knows you are a museum, either.
There is probably little reason to worry about the consequences of an inability to distinguish between, say, Web sites operated by pretend dogs and sites operated by real ones (bona fido canines). There may be greater need to take a less casual approach to material provided by organisations claiming to be museums. The ability to include the letter string "museum" in an Internet domain name can be purchased by anyone having about USD 10 per year to spend on it. There is no requirement, whatsoever, for the activity subsequently conducted in such a domain bearing the slightest relationship to anything that the professional museum community might regard as a legitimate museum purpose. Indeed, any one of the well over ten thousand MUSEUMSOMETHING dot-COMs, dot-ORGs and dot-NETs can as easily be used deliberately to conceal antisocial activity as it can to designate what, indeed, bears the best attributes of museumness.
The Domain Name System (DNS) was never intended to provide more than a convenient means for equating the names that people commonly use to identify the various computers that are connected to the Internet, with the numerical addresses that these computers use to identify each other. There was initially a clear semantic basis for differentiating among what have latterly come to be termed the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) dot-com, dot-org, and dot-edu (with dot-net coming later). This was expressed in rules that have never been more than loosely applied when evaluating requests for registration (with the erratic exception of dot-edu). The traditional response to the concerns expressed in the preceding paragraph would be to dismiss them with reference to their being based on an ascription of significance to domain names that they were never meant to have. A lot has happened, however, since the early days of the DNS.
The removal of all restrictions on commercial participation in the Internet resulted in a staggering inflation in the value of domain names, mostly particularly in dot-com. This gave rise to the identically named and ever so peculiar dotcom economic phenomenon. Domain names were no longer being used as loosely derived ID's for computers; they were being used to "brand" both products and corporate Web sites. Attractive domain names acquired monetary value of lunatic proportion and domain name disputes generated incessant legal action (lucrative, in turn, to specialised legal professionals). The basis for asserting that domain names were devoid of significant meaning eroded utterly despite persistent hard-line assertions to the contrary. At the same time, all pretence at enforcing the original meaning of the three-letter gTLDs was abandoned toward the unmasked end of generating as much revenue as possible from their operation.
These difficulties were seen looming on the horizon fully five years ago by the late Jon Postel, the creator of the DNS, who proposed their mitigation by the establishment of a large number of new gTLDs each intended to serve a clear purpose that could be recognised from the domain's name. This marked the start of an extraordinarily contentious and protracted discussion about the basis for what was termed Internet governance, with clear focus on modes for anchoring this on an international platform rather than leaving it the control of its initial sole guardian, the United States Government.
This process is far from over but it has passed at least two milestones. The first was the creation in 1998 of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) [1] and the second was a decision made by ICANN in November 2000 to introduce seven new gTLDs into the DNS. Although the negotiations necessary to formalise these domains are currently in progress there appears to be little doubt that an expansion of the generic top level of the DNS is imminent.
One of the new seven gTLDs is dot-museum, intended to provide the community of Internet users with a means for recognizing bona fide museums on the basis of their being registered in a gTLD specifically restricted to such use. The dot-museum charter will be on public record and anyone wishing to know the basis for entitlement to registration in the domain can easily find it.
Although this does nothing to provide the DNS with the ability to assist people who are trying to locate Net-based resources, it does allow for the recognition of the desired resources during the course of the search for them. Peering beyond the formal and narrow constraints of the DNS, having a shared name space for the global museum community can provide significant impetus and support for the development of a directory service that could permit unprecedentedly comprehensive searches for museum information in Net-based repositories. Although domain names traditionally designate computers and named services, the dot-museum nomenclature can easily be extended to provide name space for individual objects in museum collections. This would allow for a name such as monalisa.collections.louvre.museum.
One of the primary reasons for ICANN having selected dot-museum in the "first wave" of new TLDs is its suitability as the pioneer initiative in the envisioned creation of a larger number of TLDs, each dedicated to one sector of the cultural community. Taking a leap into a future where other sectors operate such domains, identically structured name spaces could be used in each of them that houses catalogable objects, such as dot-library containing magnacarta.manuscripts.british.library.
The DNS was never intended to be applied to the management of such information structures and it would be egregiously misused by any attempt at incorporating it in the implementation of what is being suggested here. That notwithstanding, the name constructs initially devised for the DNS can be extended in far-reaching regards. Museums have a fundamental mandate to describe and catalogue their holdings. The extreme utility of the various repositories of resulting information being interoperable has long been recognised, and means for implementing this has been the focus of much cost and effort. The availability of a single coherent name space into which every single museum object can be placed has potential for bringing the realisation of this goal immeasurably closer. The potential utility of extending this across the boundaries of adjacent cultural sectors should be apparent.
ICANN has entrusted the establishment and enforcement of dot-museum policy, as well as responsibility for the operation of its registry, to the Museum Domain Management Association (MuseDoma) [2]. Although it currently consists of no more than its founding members, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) [3] and the J. Paul Getty Trust [4], MuseDoma has been incorporated as an open membership organisation providing all interested parties with the ability to participate in the on-going discussion of the refining and development of domain policy. The core elements of this policy are a statement of the basis for entitlement to registration in the domain, and the principles used for the naming of subdomains. The primary normative instrument underlying the first of these concerns is the ICOM Definition of Museum as stated in that organisation's statutes [5]. The naming principles are being devised at the time of present writing. Anyone who is interested may follow this activity as it unfolds via MuseDoma's Web site and its e-mail distribution lists [6]. Relevant developments on ICANN's side of the fence may be followed via their equivalent channels.
Although currently absorbed entirely by the legal, administrative, and technical aspects of getting the new TLD up and running, MuseDoma looks forward to being able as soon as possible to turn its attention to the development of value-added services for the dot-museum registrants. Primary among these is participating in the development of directory services that will allow us to harness the potential residing in the broad name space that is at our disposal.
The Internet architects have clearly indicated that they feel the DNS to be inadequate for many of the requirements that users have and, lacking anything better, are imposing on it. The directory services to be devised for use with dot-museum will need to be coordinated with the central initiative, in turn calling broader attention to the needs and potential of this domain (unique among the New Seven in its belonging to a sector with a centuries-long tradition of devising and managing systematic nomenclatural hierarchies).
Once it is moderately comfortably in business, MuseDoma looks forward to sharing its experience in the manifold aspects of the creation of a TLD with its siblings in the cultural community. One of the more daunting aspects of creating a TLD is the prosaic but vital need for a robust technical infrastructure. This includes the various database servers needed for the DNS, for the internal administration of the domain, and for the public availability of key bits of information about subdomain holders -- the so-called WHOIS data. These servers need absolutely reliable high-speed connections to the Internet and, to avoid "single points of failure", need to be maintained redundantly at separate and distant sites. Establishing this technical infrastructure involves enormous headache and expense. Fortunately, multiple domain registries can be operated on a shared platform with each newcomer necessitating an incremental cost that is a fraction of the initial investment.
It would be inappropriate at the moment of present writing to discuss the various means by which MuseDoma may elicit the support of operators of pre-existing such infrastructure. (The matter is subject to negotiations that are currently in progress.) What can be noted, especially given the nature of this publication, is that the options are all centered in Europe. In fact, the initial four years during which the new TLD process had been tracked toward the end of establishing a museum top-level domain - starting with the Postel Proposal and ending with the creation of MuseDoma - were all centered in Europe. The leg work and lobbying was financed primarily by the Swedish Museum of Natural History (NRM) [7] in Stockholm, in which city ICOM's central Internet host is also located.
This activity is now being formalised by the establishment of the dot-museum network information center at NRM. Every top-level domain has its so-called NIC [8], serving as the central point for the coordination of various aspects of the domain's daily operation. With due pride in the dot-museum NIC being created in the capital city of the current President State of the EU, it is being given an acronym that highlights its European basis - musEnic.
This European connection is probably not as coincidental as it first appears. Europe may well be alone in the world as an area that simultaneously houses rich repositories of cultural property, shares them across many language and cultural borders, and is an extremely sophisticated participant in the technological arena on both the consumer and industrial levels. Europe is thus ideally suited as a development and initial deployment arena for the cross-domain initiatives mentioned above. We hope that we will be able to lash musEnic firmly to European ground and that we may then see the rings on the water radiate outwardly from Europe to the rest of the world as we undertake the exhilarating task of building a cultural sector on the Internet. The cradle of the Internet's technological development was the United States of America, which demonstrated its ability to do massive good work in the process. As the Net embarks on another grand phase of its development it would be entirely fitting for Europe to be at the helm.
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Cary Karp
Director of Internet Strategy and Technology
Swedish Museum of Natural History
ck@nrm.se
<http://www.nrm.se/>
Phone: +46 8 5195 4055
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For citation purposes:
Karp, C. "The Sign on the Door: Establishing a Top-level Museum Domain on the Internet", Cultivate Interactive, issue
4, 7 May 2001
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/museum/>
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