ARL / CAUSE / EDUCOM
Coalition for Networked Information
___________________________________
Fall Task Force Meeting
November 29-30, 1994
Project Update: Project CHIO: Cultural Heritage Information Online
CIMI: Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum
Information
The CIMI Consortium recently received a TIIAP grant of $158,150 to support
Cultural Heritage Information Online (CHIO). The project will create a database
of multimedia folk art and standards and formats for representing information
such as text, images, and publications.
Project Description
Developments in the networking of information make it possible to envision a
day when researchers in the humanities will have easy-to-use electronic access
to text, images, and sound-available not just from libraries but also from
museums, archives, and private collections throughout the world. Many
challenges remain to be tackled before such comprehensive access will be
possible. Foremost among them is the need for community standards, both for
structuring the information and for making it accessible. The Consortium for
the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) has endorsed broad
general standards for both of these needs in the
CIMI
Standards Framework
published by the
Museum
Computer Network (MCN). The CIMI Consortium will now
demonstrate how these standards can be applied to museum information through
Project CHIO, Cultural Heritage Information Online.
CHIO will demonstrate solutions to the difficulties in achieving online access
to information held in textual databases and imagebases independent of the
hardware and software used to store the data or search for it. The project
will use a resource of approximately 10,000 records on the theme of folk art.
Created in the CHIO Structure phase, the folk art information consists of
databases of museum object records, full texts, and bibliographic records,
along with imagebases and online tools such as the Art and Architecture
Thesaurus (AAT) and ULAN (Union List of Artist Names) contributed by CIMI
members. By implementing the Z39.50 standard, CHIO Access will demonstrate the
ability to use many local user systems to search and retrieve information from
each of these databases singly and concurrently from two or more. The strength
of Project CHIO is in standards. If standards are not developed and put into
practice soon, institutions run the risk of wasting money and considerable
effort on developing important resources that can never be shared in a
networked environment.
About The CIMI Consortium
The CIMI Consortium is a group of 14 museums, corporations and museum
organizations who have agreed to work cooperatively to solve problems relating
to the interchange of museum information.
The members of the CIMI Consortium are:
Museum Computer Network(MCN)
Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN)
Research Libraries Group (RLG)
Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP)
The Smithsonian Institution/National Museum of American Art
National Gallery of Art, Washington
University of California Berkeley, Museum Informatics Project
The University of California Division of Library Automation,
RAMA Consortium (consisting of the Ashmolean, the Museon,
the Musee d'Orsay, the Prado, the Pergamon, the Goulandris
Foundation of Cycladic Art, the Museo Archeologico Nacional,
and the Uffizi)
Eastman Kodak Company
Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Continuum Productions Corporation
The Museum Documentation Association
The Victoria and Albert Museum
For information about CIMI please contact:
John Perkins, CIMI Project Manager
16 Schooner Dr., RR1
Boutiliers Point, Nova Scotia, Canada, B0J 1G0
Tel: 902-826-2824 Fax: 902-826-1337
E-mail: jperkins@fox.nstn.ns.ca
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