Introduction
The scope of the network resources maintained by the international museum community is rapidly expanding. This material is of obvious utility within the context of the museum sector's exhibition, educational, and research activities. The telecommunications and multimedia industries have also expressed substantial interest in this, as well as in museums as providers of content in commercial and experimental regards.
Several individuals and organizations have undertaken the task of establishing services intended to provide structured points of entry to the network resources offered by museums and related enterprises. The number of such indexing and directory initiatives has now grown to the point where higher level directories can fulfill a useful purpose.
Many organizations serving the museum community are presenting themselves as candidates for providing such high level points of entry into the sectorial resource. One such attempt is being made by the International Council of Museums - ICOM. The e-mail and World Wide Web services that ICOM operates centrally presently provide access to the organization's core documents, links to sites maintained by its Committees, and the Virtual Library Museums Pages (VLmp). The Swedish Museum of Natural History and the University of Reading contribute substantial material and technical support to the operation of the central ICOM facility. Mirror sites are currently located in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. An additional site is being established in Africa.
Plans for the expansion of these facilities include a global registry both of corporate museum e-mail addresses and those of individual museum workers. Potential also exists for providing domain name services for the museum community. (The Appendix contains detailed information about this. Each following remark about domain name issues is similarly amplified in the Appendix.)
These current and projected services will be contributed to seed a Registry of Museum Network Resources (REMUNERE). ICOM's National Committees may provide a useful basis for a network of contributors of information about local museum resources. Similarly, the ICOM mirror sites may provide a useful platform for the distribution of REMUNERE material. The host organizations for several of the mirror sites have developed substantial resources listings of their own which, hopefully, may be contributed to the project.
It is clear from the outset that the success of REMUNERE will require the sharing of all aspects of its operation on an equal responsibility and visibility basis by all participants. Several organizations that currently maintain services of the type described here are involved in the preparatory consultation that will determine the further direction that the joint initiative will take. The list of participants is expected to grow as the project advances past its initial conceptual phase.
The present text was precipitated to a large extent by the realization that the current means for maintaining the listing of museum resources in the Virtual Library cannot be sustained without substantial reinforcement. ICOM has provided support towards this end by contributing host services for the VLmp. (This explains why ICOM, rather than any of of the other REMUNERE participants is mentioned specifically here.) The long-term viability of ICOM's own network services will also require a better infrastructure.
Technical Approach
The technical development of REMUNERE is divided into two phases. The first is focused on transcending the constraints of the manual operation of directory services. A mechanism must be provided for extensive automated contribution and validation of information to the various directories. The resulting databases must be searchable in a manner that allows for the rapid and precise location of specific pieces of information.
Initially, REMUNERE will attempt to adapt the basic mechanisms used for registration in, and maintenance of, the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). Of particular interest are the means for the shared operation of directory services that current modifications to the DNS will require. The widespread expertise of the museum community in addressing issues pertaining to automated registration systems will be harnessed to the extent possible. Of particular interest are current initiatives in the application of SGML and Z39.50 technologies. REMUNERE will consider conducting original work in developing suitable applications if previous work cannot be adapted.
The second technical phase will involve expanding the scope of the services offered. The first such service will be a directory of museums, museum networks and domains, and museum workers (using one of the pre-exiting structures such as WHOIS or X.500). This may be followed by the provision of host e-mail and WWW services to the broader museum community. REMUNERE will closely follow current work towards the establishment of new international top level domains on the Internet. If it appears appropriate, action will be taken to establish a top level domain specifically for museums. In any case, second and third level domain services may be made available.
The integration of the full suite of services will present numerous technical challenges. As these are met, every attempt will be made to incorporate relevant multimedia presentation devices. Although this may be seen as embroidery, REMUNERE will benefit from its material being presented in a manner likely to captivate the interest of network users who might not otherwise take particular notice of the service.
It is expected that participating organizations may wish to provide their own user interfaces to the underlying REMUNERE databases. Means for coordinating alterative forms of access will require development.
Key Issues
Expected Impact
A significant indicator of the success of this initiative will be its ability to gain support that will enable a transition from the voluntary maintenance of the seed resources to a robust automated infrastructure.
Appendix
The top level domain name space on the Internet - the familiar COM, EDU, ORG and various national designations such as FR, SE and UK - is being expanded. Seven new "generic top level domains" (gTLDs) are about to be taken into operation and provision has been made for the future creation of additional gTLDs.
Detailed background information is given in a report, "The International Museum Community's Position in the Internet Domain Name System: Background Information". This also discusses means by which the museum community can establish a sectorial domain identity. One of the options is for a pre-existing domain operated by an organization within the museum sector to expand the scope of its facilities. An example of how this might occur is provided in the following paragraphs. Please note that this is illustrational; it is not a proposal.
ICOM currently operates the second level domain, ICOM.ORG. From the point of view of its parent organization this is exactly as it should be. The top level domain, ORG, is for the use of international not-for-profit entities. The second level domain designation, although not the exclusive property of the International Council of Museums, ought easily to be justified if ever challenged by a trademark holder. (There is an ICOM.COM owned by Internet Commerce and Online Marketing, and other commercial ICOM's have made their presence know to the museum ICOM during the course of its networking activities.)
Having been delegated authority for the operation of its own second level domain, ICOM became free to create its own third level domains. If an attempt to establish a specific top level domain for museums proves to be ill-advised, it might be reasonable for ICOM to consider registering individual museums on the third level within ICOM.ORG. Thus, for example, the Swedish National Cartoon Museum could be given the domain designation SNCM.ICOM.ORG.
Since many museums are not in any way subordinate to ICOM, any domain registration services provided within REMUNERE would more appropriately be based on a neutral second level designation such as MUSEUM.ORG. This would alter the previous example to SNCM.MUSEUM.ORG. Should a dedicated museum top level domain ultimately be established, this could easily be moved to SNCM.MUSEUM, or whatever construct is deemed suitable.
It should be noted that the suggestions about establishing a domain identity for the museum sector is intended to enhance the utility of the DNS for museum purposes. The registration of a museum in a new domain does not mean that it must terminate operation in any previous domain(s). Assuming that SNCM operates a well-known Web site at WWW.SNCM.SE, by allowing this site also to be located within an explicit museum domain, the SNCM effort will be discovered all the more easily.
All this is treated in greater detail in the background report.
http://www.remunere.net/remunere.html
Latest update: 3 July 1997