Cultural Heritage and the Semantic Web British Museum & UCL Study Day

— via Dominic Oldman —

When:

Thursday January 13th 2011

Where:

9.15 to 3:30 at BM, The Hugh and Catherine Stevenson LT

16.00 – 19.00 at UCL Roberts Building, Room G08

The World Wide Web is an essential part of the Museum’s toolkit for publishing information, engaging visitors and communicating across the globe. However, museum web sites and information systems are still largely silos that make it difficult for us to realize the benefits of bringing data together. The growing momentum of the Semantic Web movement means a greater investment in the technology and tools needed to convert its potential into practical opportunities that museums can utilise. The ability of the semantic web to cheaply but effectively integrate data and breakdown data silos provides museums with a long awaited opportunity to present a richer, more informative and interesting picture. For scholars, it promises the ability to uncover relationships and knowledge that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to discover otherwise.

The main focus of this study day is on projects that are already employing semantic web technology and which represent the beginning of a new wave of initiatives that will encourage further investigation and investment. By presenting a more practical insight into the use of the semantic web in the sector it is hoped that the current gap between the technologists and others who stand to benefit from the technology can be bridged.

Aimed at a general cultural heritage audience, the day currently includes the following speakers:

* Professor Dame Wendy Hall DBE FRS FREng – Keynote Speaker

* Kenneth Hamma – The Wrong Containers, Humanities and the Internet

* John Sheridan – Government and National Archive initiatives

* Hugh Glaser –  Museum data, where next – consuming linked data

* Atanas Kiryakov – FactForge – the Fast Track to the Centre of the Data Web

* Dominic Oldman – The ResearchSpace Initiative – Supporting scholarly research online

* Leif Isaksen – Semantic Technologies in Cultural Heritage: Past, Present and Future

* Jonathan Whitson Cloud – Paths to Data Sharing.

This is a FREE event. To book a ticket click here and for more info on the event click here.