Article Summary: "The Importance of Interoperability: Lessons from the Digital Public Library of America"

Digital libraries like the DPLA, Europeana, the World Digital Library, and the National Library of France's Gallica (just to name a few) are trying to make cultural heritage not only accessible to those looking for it, but also something one could stumble upon during a web search. Metadata gives institutions the ability to make the DPLA's record of a 1983 interview with Elie Wiesel just as discoverable as his interview with Oprah on YouTube. Don't get me wrong - I love Oprah and I love YouTube. But YouTube videos aren't made and published with longevity in mind. The DPLA fosters a better balance between preservation and access - it gives PR to smaller cultural heritage institutions and their collections across the country. 

The DPLA increases the number of "hits" institutions receive on their websites by means of good, interoperable metadata. 

Interoperability - "The ability of multiple systems with different hardware and software platforms, data structures, and interfaces to exchange data with minimal loss of content and functionality" [definition by NISO]

The DPLA includes both small and large institutions by operating on a "hub" model. Content hubs like the New York Public Library with 200,000+ items have the resources and expertise to prepare metadata for the DPLA independently. Service hubs consist of smaller institutions who collaborate and combine their resources/knowledge in order to create the kind of infrastructure necessary for participating in DPLA. The Missouri hub is one such hub.

Now, I have to be honest - this article threw around the term "API" a lot and I'm not familiar with APIs. So for anyone such as myself, API stands for "application programming interface." When you, say, look up the DPLA on your computer, a request goes out to DPLA's remote server. The API is the part of the server that receives and responds to requests. 

APIs in the DPLA work in a myriad of ways. Individuals have developed APIs that browse the DPLA by color and by term frequency. The WikipeDPLA Google Chrome extension, another API, adds relevant DPLA results to Wikipedia entries you read.  

Finally, the article talks about mitigating interoperability issues through a MAP (metadata application profile). The authors compare the MAP to a lingua franca for all DPLA metadata. The MAP describes content and "maps" (clever) relationships between elements in a record. Most recently, the DPLA has used the MAP to become more linked data-compatible by using it to store URIs. 

I'm excited by libraries' and archives' digital outreach to put cultural heritage in the public eye. Most people don't know to look for the kinds of things these institutions have - if we can make items easily discoverable online, more people will be likely to stumble upon them and explore. The Google Arts and Culture lookalike facematch fad comes to mind - sometimes you have to think like Google to get the exposure you want for your institution. 

 Heather Moulaison Sandy & Chris Freeland (2016). "The Importance of Interoperability: Lessons from the Digital Public Library of America." International Information & Library Review, 48:1, 45-50. DOI: 10.1080/10572317.2016.1146041






Comments

  1. StevenFebruary 5, 2018 at 1:12 PM

    Good work! We'll be covering a lot of this in class later in the semester when we revisit linked data, so you'll be ready!

    ReplyDelete

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