Tate Online

While we await the new version of our EMu Intranet site, it may be useful to take a look at The Tate's online database. This operates in a very similar manner to the IMu set up we will be using, and includes many similar design features.

Have a test drive here

The overall look and feel will obviously be different, but the built-in functionality is very similar; simple search and advanced search tabs, and the saved objects (known as My Collections in our version).

Tate also use a really interesting Subject classification page - which allows users to browse without any prior knowledge of the collection content. Our "Browse Collections" functionality will be implemented using the Narratives records to provide multiple ways for users to discover our collection overviews.

Also of interest on the Tate website is a detailed explanation of their ongoing digitisiation project - Insight: digitising the Tate Collection - which is well worth a read.

Experiments with Learning

Whilst exploring the Powerhouse blog Fresh + New(er) on a boring tram journey, I stumbled on another interesting post by Seb Chan on their recent experiment with using QR codes on Object labels. Similar to barcodes, QR codes are those little square pixelated codes which are used by mobile devices to photograph or 'scan' an embedded code which looks up an URL (much easier than typing a hideously long url).

What struck me in this post was the powerhouses willingness to experiment and test a new process so that the organisation can learn from the mistakes they may make - rather than just outsourcing the mistakes and the learning... read his comments here.

As Nick recently suggested, it might be useful for us to include Registration Numbers on our Object Labels, and in time when the whole EMu catalogue goes public on the Web, we could consider adding URLs to the labels as a way to provide visitors with access to more detailed information. This would also help redirect people to our website and raise awareness of our collections online facility.

8th Australasian Emu User Group Meeting

This years EMu User group meeting was hosted by Sydney's Australian Museum. Some of the Papers are well worth a read and have just been published on the KE website here http://www.kesoftware.com/content/view/1153/437/lang,en/

Some fantastic things are happening online, with EMu as the driving force behind some revamped Collections Web pages at Museum Vic and Te Papa.

Matthew Churchward & Ely Wallis discussed the development phase of Museum Victoria's soon-to-be-released History and Tech Collections website. Analysis of their web stats revealed that most people land on their web pages via a search engine that took them directly to an object's catalogue record page. So they took the approach of designing the object page as the starting point and allowing visitors to navigate from there. The result is a detailed (and very nice looking!) catalogue record page rather than a top-down approach to web design - some sneak previews are included in the presentation.

Another great paper worth a read is Adrian Kingston's demo of Te Papa's new website which is driven from EMu Narratives, Catalogue, Parties and Thesaurus Modules. The Thesaurus Module enables web users to simply click on the familiar hotlinks to browse to other objects, or gain more information about a person or topic by clicking on the word.

Have a look around here http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/ and notice the basic level of catalogue entry they provide is even less than our skeleton records. In 2005 when Te Papa released their first catalgoue records online, they published a highly edited and detailed set of 3000 records (just as we did!), but soon realised that a wider sample of records with less detail was a more useful approach to providing greater levels of public access and getting their content out into the world. All food for thought before the Arts Centre's Website is redeveloped....

Rowena