1. The VRC Project
Towards a cataloguing standard
for open data
Alick Macdonnel McLean
Augusto Palombini
fabrizio giudici

2. Agenda
• Origins and philosophy of
SUF Media Lab/VRC: open
data, the community
• Commonality of interests
between VRC original users
and archaeologists
• Technical realization with
open source tools
temple of Diana, Cefalù, photo A.M. McLean

3. Origins and philosophy
of SUF Media Lab/VRC:
open data, community

4. Origins and Philosophy
• institutional origins of the
VRC at SUF
• modest origins
• pool slide collections
when digitizing
• catalog across
disciplines
• each faculty agrees to
share data and images
with others

5. Data community
• extensible, rich cataloging blessing and challenge
• extend pool of catalogers by extending pool of
users/institutions
• expand based on original model
• distribute program in exchange for user
engagement in data community through
cataloging and image contributions

6. Commonality of interests
between VRC original users
and archaeologists

7. Common Interests?
• Commonality of interest between VRC original users
and archaeologists:
• public utility of open data and transparency of
processes
• flexible classification as a powerful research tool

8. Archaeological catalogation:
the state of the art
Traditional approach: Forcing
different objects into a main
classification scheme
Advantages:
● diffusion of standard models
● easy queries on fields
Problems:
● adapting the same model to different elements
● problems in defining standard chronological notations

9. Archaeological catalogation:
the state of the art
Traditional approach: Forcing
different objects into a main
classification scheme
Another fundamental problem
●“hard defined” relationships
among different attributes don't
allow their changing through time
and the spread of new properties
and classification criteria

10. ontologic VS episthemologic aspect
of classification.
Classification as euristhic tool
“L'eidos è un dato o un posto? lo trovo
nella cosa o lo applico alla cosa per
renderla intelligibile?”
...
“Si è irrigidita l'esperienza in un modello;
nulla dal punto di vista epistemologico
interviene ancora per affermare o negare
che l'esperienza contenesse anche gli
aspetti che ne sono stati isolati, accanto a
infiniti altri tipi di correlazione”
(U.Eco, la Strutttura assente, 1968)

11. Technical realization
with open source tools

12. VRC - Structure
● Components:
– Cataloguing core
– Web interface
– Modules for integration with rich-clients
– Photographic module
● manages: metadata, “camera raw” formats, grid
computing, etc...
● Entirely written in Java
– Cross-platform, Linux-ready

13. Entities and Relations
● Art objects (paintings, ● Relates entities to entities
sculptures, buildings,...) and entities to files
● Agents (painters, ● Basic relationships
sponsors, owners, ...) – “Made by”, “Owned
● Locations (geographical, by”, “Located at”, ...
geopolitical, historical, ● Temporal relationships
...) – Associated to date
● Materials ranges
● GPS tags – Date precision: from
d/m/y to century or
● Other information era

14. Database vs Semantic Web
● DB: entity and relations
– ad-hoc
– local, not universal
– different DB-based systems are “islands”
● Semantic Web
– RDF: Resource Description Framework
– Subject / Relation / Object
– XML based
– FLOSS resources: Jena,
SPARQL
● RDF as a “lingua franca”
● Peer-to-peer search

15. “Ontologies”
● Data models with relations
– classes
– attributes
– relations
● OWL – Web Ontology Language
● Standard ontologies
● More can be defined
– Requires pool of expert, agreement

16. An example

17. Concluding Remarks
• what does SUF need to go open source?
• sharing high-quality, vetted data for
sites across Italy and the world
• extension of data across institutions,
disciplines, geography and time
• how to structure data community?
Villa Rossa & garden, Syracuse University in
Florence
• concerns of SUF
• concerns of all data community
members
• how to express interest in VRC data
community:
• write sufmedialab@syr.fi.it
Alick McLean and Emily Schiavone, media librarian

18. • Prof. Alick Macdonnel McLean
Syracuse University
ammclean@syr.fi.it
http://www.syr.fi.it/study-abroad-florence-media-lab.php
• Dr. Augusto Palombini
CNR VHLab Rome
augusto.palombini@itabc.cnr.it
• Ing. Fabrizio Giudici
TidalWave / SourceSense
fabrizio.giudici@tidalwave.it