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A Semi-Automated Systems Architecture for Cultural Heritage
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ScienceDirect IFAC PapersOnLine 52-25 (2019) 562–567 A Semi-Automated Systems Architecture for Cultural Heritage A Semi-Automated Systems Architecture for Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions Digitising Cultural Heritage A Semi-Automated Systemsfor Architecture for Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions Digitising Cultural Heritage A Semi-Automated Systemsfor Architecture for Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions for Digitising Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions for Digitising Cultural Heritage L. Stapleton*, Brenda O’Neill**, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin L. Stapleton*, Brenda O’Neill**, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin Dalton****** L. Stapleton*, Brenda O’Neill**, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin Dalton****** Ireland, email: [email protected] Dalton****** L. Stapleton*, Brenda*INSYTE, O’Neill**,WIT, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin *INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, [email protected] **INSYTE, WIT,email: Ireland, email: [email protected] Dalton****** *INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, email: [email protected] **INSYTE, Ireland, email: [email protected] ***Luke WaddingWIT, Library/INSYTE, email: [email protected] **INSYTE, WIT,email: Ireland, email: [email protected] *INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, [email protected] ***Luke Wadding Library/INSYTE, [email protected] ****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, email:email: [email protected] ***Luke WaddingWIT, Library/INSYTE, email: [email protected] **INSYTE, Ireland, email: [email protected] ****INSYTE, WIT, email: Ireland, email: [email protected] *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland [email protected] **** ****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, email:email: [email protected] ***Luke Wadding Library/INSYTE, [email protected] *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] **** *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] **** ****INSYTE, WIT,Ireland Ireland, email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] **** *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] Abstract: The loss of cultural diversity impacts international stability by undermining sustainable Abstract: Thegoals. loss of cultural is diversity international stability by undermining development UNESCO chargedimpacts with promoting cultural diversity, guided by sustainable important, Abstract: The loss of cultural diversity impacts international stability by undermining sustainable development goals. conventions. UNESCO is IFAC charged with promoting cultural diversity, guided by application important, globally recognised, researchers have recently directed attention to the development UNESCO is chargedimpacts with promoting cultural diversity, guided by sustainable important, Abstract: Thegoals. loss of cultural diversity international stability byattention undermining globally recognised, conventions. IFAC researchers have recently directed the application of automation systems to the preservation of cultural heritage. This paper reports to developments in globally recognised, conventions. IFAC researchers have recently directed attention to the application development goals. UNESCO is charged with promoting cultural diversity, guided by important, of automation to the preservation of cultural This paper reports digital cultural systems heritage and media automation. Using a heritage. human-centred approach, the developments paper presentsina of automation systems to the preservation of cultural heritage. This paperattention reports to developments in globally recognised, conventions. IFAC researchers have recently the application digital and media automation. aofhuman-centred approach, the paper presents systemscultural projectheritage which places culture at the Using centre technicaldirected development. Leading metadataa digital cultural systems heritage and media automation. Using a heritage. human-centred approach, the developments paper presentsina of automation to the preservation of cultural This paper reports systems which places culture at the centre of technical Leading standardsproject are surveyed and machine-readable ontological modelsdevelopment. proposed which can metadata describe systemscultural projectheritage which and places culture at the Using centre aofhuman-centred technical development. Leading metadataa digital automation. approach, the paper presents standards are tangible surveyedcultural andmedia machine-readable ontological modelsThis proposed which can describe intangible and heritage as envisaged by UNESCO. study proposes a digitisation standardsproject are surveyed and machine-readable ontological modelsdevelopment. proposed which can metadata describe systems whichcultural places culture at the centre oflinked technical Leading intangible and tangible heritage asinenvisaged by UNESCO. study proposes digitisation process which encodes artefact properties XML to be into This the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises intangible and tangible cultural heritage as envisaged by UNESCO. This study proposes a digitisation standards are surveyed and machine-readable ontological models proposed which can describe process which encodes properties in XML to be linked intoThis the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises an architecture to guideartefact the work of a new research laboratory. study embodies new transprocess which encodes cultural artefact properties XML to be linked into This the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises intangible and tangible heritage asinenvisaged by UNESCO. study proposes an architecture to guide the at work of a new laboratory. This embodies a digitisation new transdisciplinary research agenda the interface ofresearch systems engineering and study the humanities. an architecture to guideartefact the work of a new research laboratory. study embodies new transprocess which encodes properties in of XML to be linked intoThis the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises disciplinary research agenda at the interface systems engineering and the humanities. disciplinary research agenda at the interface ofresearch systems engineering and the humanities. © 2019, IFAC (International Federation ofnew Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. an architecture to guide the work of a laboratory. This study embodies a new transKeywords: Developing countries, systems development, culture disciplinary research agenda at the interface of systems engineering and the humanities. Keywords: Developing countries, systems development, culture Keywords: Developing countries, systems development, culture Keywords: Developing countries, systems development,digital culturesystems can support the work of curators and sets 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIdigital systems canforsupport work of curators based and sets out a programme a new the research laboratory on 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIAUTOMATIC ARCHIVE SYSTEMS digital systems can support the work of curators and sets out a programme forsystem a new principles research laboratory based ona the human-machine of Mike Cooley, 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIAUTOMATIC ARCHIVE SYSTEMS out a programme a new the research laboratory based on digital systems canforsupport work (c.f. of and sets the human-machine system principles of curators Mike Cooley, a leading contemporary cybernetician Cooley (1982), International stability research paysSYSTEMS attention to the AUTOMATIC ARCHIVE 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIthe human-machine system principles of Mike Cooley, out a programme for a new research laboratory based on leading contemporary cybernetician Cooley (1982),a (2018); Gill (2016)). The next section(c.f. places this initiative International pays attention to the application AUTOMATIC ofstability digital research automation systems to cultural ARCHIVE SYSTEMS leading contemporarysystem cybernetician (c.f. Cooley (1982),a International ofstability research pays attention to the the principles of Mike (2018); Gill international (2016)). The context next section places thisCooley, initiative in a human-machine broader and shows why this work application digital systems cultural heritage. Soselia et al automation (2018) described an tointelligent (2018); Gill (2016)). The next section(c.f. places this initiative application ofstability digital research automationpays systems to cultural leading contemporary cybernetician Cooley (1982), International attention to the in broader international context and shows why is aimportant for international stability. This this in work turn heritage. al (2018) described anandintelligent applicationSoselia used toetsupport the identification curating in a broader international context and shows work heritage. Soselia et al automation (2018) described intelligent (2018); Gill systems (2016)). The next section placeswhy this this initiative application of digital systemsan tocuneiform cultural is important for international This in challenges engineers tostability. rethink their roleturn in application to support the identification curating of ancient used Georgian manuscripts written inand is aimportant for international stability. This this in work turn applicationSoselia used toetsupport the identification andintelligent curating in broaderdevelopment. international contexttoand shows why heritage. almanuscripts (2018) challenges systems engineers rethink their role in sustainable of ancient Georgian written in first cuneiform script. Soselia et al (2018) was described one of thean papers challenges systems engineers tostability. rethink This their in roleturn in of ancient used Georgian manuscripts written inandcuneiform is important for international application toalsupport the identification curating sustainable development. script. Soselia (2018) was one of how the first papers published in et IFAC which showed intelligent sustainable development. script. Soselia et al (2018) was one of the first papers challenges systems engineers to rethink their role in of ancient in Georgian written in cuneiform published IFAC manuscripts which how intelligent automation technology solved showed difficult problems in the 2. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL, published in et IFAC whichwasshowed how intelligent sustainable development. script. Soselia al (2018) one of the first papers automation technology difficult work problems in the 2. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL, field of cultural heritage.solved Their ongoing has opened SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT automation in technology which solved showed difficult problems in the 2. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL, published how intelligent field ofresearch cultural IFAC heritage. Their has opened SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT new trajectories in ongoing TECISwork research. The Cultural refersHERITAGE to the DEVELOPMENT legacyAND of physical artifacts, field of cultural heritage.solved Their ongoing work has opened SUSTAINABLE automation technology difficult in The the 2. heritage CULTURAL GLOBAL, new research trajectories TECIS problems research. Community Research and inDevelopment Information Cultural heritage refers tooften the DEVELOPMENT legacy of physical technologies and various, intangible, features artifacts, of some new ofresearch trajectories in ongoing TECISwork research. The field cultural heritage. Their has opened SUSTAINABLE Community Development Service detail Research a Learningand Management SystemInformation (LMS) for Cultural heritage refers to the legacy of physical artifacts, technologies and various, features of some culturally-distinct group often that intangible, are inherited from past Community Research and inDevelopment Information new research trajectories TECIS research. The Service detail a Learning Management System (LMS) for Intangible Cultural Heritage using sensors (CORDIS technologies and various, intangible, features artifacts, of some Cultural heritage refers tooften the present legacy of physical culturally-distinct groupin that are inherited from past generations, maintained the time and curated and Service detail a Learning Management System (LMS) for Community Research and Development Information Intangible Cultural using (2017)). This systemHeritage preserves andsensors teaches(CORDIS a) rare culturally-distinct groupinoften thatpresent are inherited from past technologies and intangible, features of some generations, the time and curated and nurtured formaintained thevarious, benefit of future generations. Cultural Intangible Cultural Heritage using sensors (CORDIS Service detail a Learning Management System (LMS) for (2017)). and teaches a) rare traditionalThis songs,system b) rarepreserves dance interactions, c) traditional generations, maintained present time and curated and culturally-distinct groupin the that are inherited from past nurtured for the benefit of future generations. Cultural diversity fosters cross-cultural dialog and encourages (2017)). This systemHeritage preserves and teaches(CORDIS a) rare Intangible Cultural using traditional songs, rare dance interactions, c) traditional craftsmanship i.e. b) pottery making usingsensors motion sensors to nurtured formaintained the benefit of present future time generations. Cultural generations, in the and curated and diversity fosters between cross-cultural dialog culturally and encourages mutual respect and across diverse traditional songs,system b) rarepreserves dance interactions, c) traditional (2017)). data This and teaches a) craftsmanship i.e. using sensors to compare of pottery master making craftsman andmotion student andrare d) diversity for fosters cross-cultural dialog and encourages nurtured thebetween benefit of future mutual respect andpotentially acrossgenerations. culturally diverse communities. However, it is threatenedCultural by the craftsmanship i.e. b) pottery makinginteractions, using motion sensors to traditional songs, rare dance c) traditional compare data music of master craftsmanThis andand student d) contemporary composition. other and studies mutual respect between and across culturally diverse diversitymarch fosters cross-cultural and There encourages communities. However, it is potentially threatened byhave the onward of globalisation anddialog automation. compare data i.e. of pottery master making craftsman andmotion student and d) craftsmanship using sensors to contemporary music composition. This and and automation other studies demonstrate the application of control in communities. However, it is potentially threatened diverse by the mutual respect across onward march of between globalisation and automation. have been cases where cultural and material andculturally folk There technology contemporary music composition. This and other studies compare data of master craftsman and student and d) demonstrate the application of control and automation in cultural heritage preservation, transmission and craft onward march of globalisation and automation. communities. However, ismaterial potentially threatened byhave the been cases where cultural and folk There technology have been exploited asitintellectual property. Stapleton, demonstrate the application of control and in contemporary music composition. This and automation other cultural heritage preservation, andstudies craft education. This paper contributestransmission to that discourse by been cases where cultural material and folk There technology onward march of globalisation and automation. have have exploited asdescribe intellectual property. inStapleton, Smith been & Murphy (2005) folk traditions northern cultural heritage preservation, transmission and craft demonstrate application of control automation in education. This paper contributes to and that discourse for by proposing athesemi-automated digital architecture have cases been exploited as intellectual property. Stapleton, been where cultural material and folk technology Smith Murphy describe folkskills, traditions in northern India in& which are(2005) embedded unique knowledge and education.heritage This paper contributestransmission to that discourse by cultural preservation, and craft proposing a semi-automated digital architecture for curating cultural heritage according to international Smith been & Murphy (2005) describe folk traditions inStapleton, northern have exploited asbrass intellectual property. India in which embedded unique skills, and technology by are which artefacts are knowledge manufactured. proposing This a semi-automated digital architecture for education. paper contributes to that discourse by curating heritage international sustainablecultural development goals.according It explorestoways in which India in& which are(2005) embedded unique knowledge and Smith Murphy describe folkskills, traditions in northern technology by which brass artefacts are manufactured. curating cultural heritage toways international proposing a semi-automated for sustainable development goals.according Itdigital exploresarchitecture in which technology by are which brass unique artefacts are knowledge manufactured. India in which embedded skills, and sustainablecultural development goals.according It explorestoways in which curating heritage international technology by which brass artefacts are manufactured. sustainable development goals. It explores ways in 2405-8963 © 2019, IFAC (International Federation of Automaticwhich Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Peer review under responsibility of International Federation of Automatic Control. 10.1016/j.ifacol.2019.12.606
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These customs and traditions have been passed down and curated for centuries by families and communities through various socio-cultural processes. Automated factories made it difficult for these artisans to make a living from the brass artefacts. The tragedy was that, not only would the artefacts no longer be produced in indigenous communities, but the technologies, processes, stories and, indeed, the very life of the community in which these artefacts were made, would be lost to history. Such a loss of cultural diversity undermines international stability and acts as a barrier to sustainable development. UNESCO has established a World Heritage Centre to implement the “Word Heritage Convention” (WHC), one of a number of instruments designed to deliver global cultural diversity objectives (UNESCO (1972)). The WHC addresses both biodiversity and cultural diversity as means to achieve sustainable development. UNESCO (1972; 2019) defines 2 kinds of cultural heritage: Tangible Cultural Heritage: architecture, sites of historical importance, monuments, artifacts and other physical objects considered to be important and in need of preservation and curation. These typically include objects related to some specific cultural context. These objects offer a concrete basis for ideas and meanings and may validate a sense of shared community identity. Preserving tangible cultural heritage recognises the critical importance of a past in which artefacts were made and used, and helps people to connect with their story. This validates collective memories, providing a literal way of connecting to the past. Intangible Heritage: living expressions inherited from ancestors and passed on to descendants. These include oral traditions, performing arts, social rituals and customs, tacit knowledge, skills and practices. This knowledge is not frozen but shifts over time as it is interpreted and reinterpreted and is a treasury of knowledge and skills transmitted across generations and communities. It has important socio-economic benefits for both developing and developed regions. The internationally recognised significance of cultural heritage challenges automation systems engineering to rethink the role of automation in human society. Cooley (2018) pays attention to the need for a human/machine systems approach which valorises human knowledge, placing it at the centre of the proliferation of automation. This raises the question: What would a system comprising a symbiosis of human and machine cognition and capability for archiving cultural heritage look like? 3. THE LIBRARY IN HISTORY There is great emphasis on the control and exploitation of knowledge through patents and IP as the “property” of certain individuals and groups. It is self-evident that these interests are in conflict with the goals of institutions like UNESCO. Instead of placing commercial interests at the centre of knowledge curation, do social institutions exist which curate cultural heritage and human knowledge on behalf of society? Can these institutions gain from a
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symbiosis of human and machine system designed as a socially useful way of curating artefacts and placing them in their intangible cultural context? Historically, libraries have taken on the institutional role of repositories for cultural material of great importance to civilisation. For example, in Ireland book collections were at the centre of monastic life in the Celtic church leading to the immense contribution of Irish scholars to intellectual activity on mainland Europe during the pre-Carolingian period (Flanagan (2002)). It was around libraries that the first British universities developed at Oxford and Cambridge, whose statutes were based on ancient monastic regulations. In the 14th and 15th centuries monastic and university libraries and their librarians were at the centre of social change in Britain (Bell (1999)) and, even later, libraries were at the heart of social change in 18th and 19th century Ireland. Libraries were sanctuaries in which cultural heritage survived. Librarians inherit a long tradition, and possess the scholarship and skill, to nurture, organise and make accessible cultural heritage. For this reason, this research centres around a large, publicallyaccessible, Irish university library which contains archives of national and international importance. 4. MIKE COOLEY AND THE COOLEY COLLECTION The Cooley Collection is a unique archive of someone possessed of a deep sense of what a scientific culture meant for workers in factories, artisans and traditional communities. Cooley was the first recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (alternative to the Nobel Prize) and consistently placed human needs at the heart of automation projects. He was a founder of the human-centred systems movement, which led to “anthropocentric systems” in Germany and informed “socio-technical systems” thinkers in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia. His work valorised human tacit knowledge and skill, arguing that machine intelligence should augment, not replace, human endeavour (Cooley (1982); 2018)). The family of Professor Cooley donated his personal library, correspondence and materials to the Luke Wadding Library at Waterford Institute of Technology. This manifested in the form of 34 boxes, including about 1400 physical books, and the collection was formally opened to scholars and students in March 2019. The primary goal was curation with a view to digitising the collection and organising metadata while staying loyal to the values of Human Centred Systems which Mike Cooley founded and promoted. The collection contains a very diverse range of formats and material types including books, letters, papers, VHS, audio cassettes, 35mm slides, ephemera and photographs. Controlling and automating (or even semi-automating) a coherent curation and, thereby, providing online and offline access to digital and physical versions of these artefacts is an immense challenge requiring a sophisticated, low-cost, digital architecture wrapped around the physical archiving activities of WIT librarians. Many artefacts require preliminary conversion in order to make them accessible to
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researchers. For example, in 2019, few people have ready access to the video players needed to playback VHS tapes which record important meetings in the labour movement dating back to the early 1980s. The scope of the books in Professor Cooley’s personal library traverses the Dewey catalogue spectrum. It was essential for archivists to utilise bibliographic series linking and branding the collection to contextualise and manage it within the wider library. The Cooley Collection presents the Library with other challenges and opportunities. It must prepare a full inventory of the collection, provide online public access and attract scholars and students to engage with, and enhance, the collection as cultural heritage. One of the exciting possibilities for both science and humanities education is to create digital systems embodying a new pedagogical approach within the Institute. The vision is to place the archive at the centre of the classroom and the students’ learning experience, interpreted and reinterpreted by lecturers and students alike. This implies creating digital “versions” of the artefacts, embedded in systems which embody the semantic meanings surrounding the objects, and not just their technical and administrative descriptions. 5. THE NEW RESEARCH LABORATORY A series of computer science projects were launched culminating in a proposal for a major new laboratory located in the library’s digitisation hub and situated amongst the cultural heritage collections, including the Cooley Collection. The lab team includes librarians, technologists and other researchers working together to produce systems based on principles of human-machine symbiosis and incorporating ways to capture, control and interpret complex digital objects and their metadata. All work at the laboratory will be pursued according to Cooley’s espoused values and substantive legacy. The lab will focus on socially-useful outcomes which valorise human knowledge whilst optimising the collective capabilities of human and machine intelligence and cognition (Groumpos (2018)). Human-centred systems design principles as set out in Professor Cooley’s work will inform its activities. Physically, collections will be available in the laboratory itself which will be secured using smart cards and curated by librarians. Technically, archive objects will be digitised and described and embedded in a complex machine-readable knowledge network accessible through online channels comprising various metadata. The technological architecture and semiautomated process includes digitisation techniques, the extension of library metadata standards and use cases of an advanced digital library which lies at the heart of society itself. The purpose of the laboratory is to explore and solve research problems in the matrix set out in Table 1. The next sections survey a proposed technological architecture and summarise key processes associated with semiautomatically archiving cultural heritage as follows: 1.
Knowledge-Based Art & Media Systems:
a. Descriptive Metadata. b. Ontology for embedding artefacts in meaningful, machine-readable knowledge web. 2.
Digitisation Processes & Technologies.
The first projects focussed on metadata standards and gave rise to a broad research agenda summarised in Table 1. Table 1. Core Purpose of the Laboratory
6. METADATA STANDARDS There was an opportunity to use emerging database and AI systems to help control and manage library archives. This involves difficult challenges associated with digital archive management processes, metadata and knowledge models. For brevity, this section will briefly review the results of the two initial projects associated with the archive. It then proceeds to review digitalisation challenges, a vision for a semantic web capability and then synthesises a generic architecture for future projects at the lab. Metadata Standards for Archives Like other archives, the Cooley Collection comprised a great variety of objects, from books to video tape to religious artefacts to correspondence and very many other formats. Once an object is digitised it has to be formally described so as to make it amenable for curation on a digital library archive. It is possible to define our own data models for describing the objects but this would create difficulties for an online system. For example, if other libraries want to access our system, they would need to use our formatting conventions. It was decided to evaluate widely used existing descriptive metadata standards that have been developed for digital libraries. The standard currently used in the library is the XML-based MARC standard (Furrie (2009)). The first task was to identify criteria for evaluating standards like MARC and then perform a formal assessment of each standard according to the criteria. Evaluation criteria included interoperability i.e. the capacity of the standard to support technological interoperability across multiple platforms and across the web. Extensibility criteria assessed the extent to which the standard could be extended to other objects not yet covered in the standard i.e. its amenability for enhancement and extension into the objects in the Cooley archive. It must
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also be theoretically possible to describe a wide variety of different objects. We also wanted standards to provide for a wide range of object metadata including a basic description of the objects, structural information (e.g. descriptions of an object structure where the digital object is structurally located in multiple files and media). Finally, the standard should encode administrative metadata associated with archiving itself. The evaluation findings are summarised in Table 2. The Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS (2010)) was selected from this assessment. Next, digital objects were encoded in METS. METS had not been used previously for similar artefacts. For example, the archive included scanned correspondences whose metadata had not before been controlled by METS. On completion of the initial encoding, archivists were asked to formally review the encoding and compare it to the MARC standard they currently used. They reported that METS was a far richer way of describing key attributes in these objects. METS is used by some libraries in the USA but has not received much attention from Irish libraries. The next step was to test METS’ capacity to handle intangible cultural heritage. Focussing on correspondence, we next explored if METS could go beyond the control of attribute data, and encode what these letters “meant” i.e. the semantics.
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The Cooley Collection expresses the personal, intellectual development of Mike Cooley. By embedding collection artefacts in a web of knowledge about Mike Cooley we could potentially extend to and incorporate knowledge externally located somewhere on the web. For example, using descriptive logic could we map a correspondence about Cooley’s trade union activities to a YouTube video segment from a documentary on Cooley and an audio recording of a meeting in the 1980s in mp3 format to which the letter referred? Theoretically this can be achieved using ontologies based around the semantic web stack (to ensure interoperability across the web). Projects at the lab have already begun to specify ways in which the METS standard mentioned above might be linked into an XML-compliant, machine-readable ontology which can then be accessed via a user interface using, for example, Apache/Java-based open source software applications to keep costs down.
Table 2. Metadata Standards Evaluated (METS selected)
Fig. 1. Ontology Extract (focus: Object Properties)
7. SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGIES Archiving in libraries involves an appreciation of the social, cultural and intellectual context of artefacts. The Dewey Decimal Cataloguing (DDC) system developed in the 19th century, and still widely used by libraries, assigns books in categories of knowledge. By taking advantage of developments in knowledge modelling, it might be possible to extend these classifications, placing artefacts in a much broader intellectual, social, historical and cultural context. In this way, digital systems might be used to interweave machine-readable information about tangible and intangible cultural heritage, preserving both without ossifying them.
Fig. 2. Ontology Small Extract (focus: Historicity) Some basic knowledge associated with the correspondence was mapped into an ontology. The ontology uses description logic to define triplets in a graph which is formalised using languages defined in the semantic web stack, controlled by the W3C and therefore machine readable. Figures 1 and 2 show small, simplified, extracts from the ontology. The machine model includes both format information usually associated with METS (Fig. 1.) and intangible culture concepts associated with historical context (Fig. 2.). The figures show semi-formal depictions of the graphs. The machine languages (including XML, RDF and OWL) used to formally define the knowledge
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comply with existing web standards controlled by the W3C. The machine can perform basic reasoning by automatically navigating the relationships between the concepts. Figure 1 highlights how METS encoding can be integrated into the ontology. This is possible because the ontology language (OWL) is able to describe METS-type data and is, like METS, XML compliant (they are encoded in the same machine language standards stack). Other machine reasoning capabilities could be used to populate the media databases such as those described in Soselia et al (2018) which involve neural network applications. The ontology can be extended to include videos depicting all kinds of intangible heritage such as crafts, encoded as instances of important, culturally distinctive concepts.
It is still common for repositories of 3D data to ignore, or worse still, dispense with altogether, the metadata created in the production of a digital object - often all that is viewable is a representation of the digital object only. However, the value of the metadata in the construction of the archive cannot be underestimated. The question then is how may this complex collection of metadata be organised into a robust, manageable and searchable archive? The open source software alTAG3D helps considerably. This software, created by the 3D SHS Consortium, produces as output XML and is fully capable of capturing the Life Cycle of 3D Data for Cultural Heritage (Dutailly (2018)), an established best-practice methodology in the field of digital cultural heritage recording.
8. DIGITISING CULTURAL HERITAGE The process of digitisation is highly technical and a critical aspect of the curation of complex, culturally-important collections. It is very important that any encoding produced by this process be XML compliant so that it can be incorporated into the overall metadata and knowledgebased system described earlier. The technical domain of digital heritage recording is a vibrant and rapidlydeveloping field. Well-established techniques used to digitally capture cultural material include laser scanning, close-range photogrammetry and Reflective Transmission Imaging (RTI). These techniques can be used to create multimedia museum displays as well as preserve vulnerable tangible and intangible cultural material (Remindino (2011)). Most importantly, the digital recording of cultural material can also be seen as ‘a tool for promoting the participation of society in its conservation’ (Remindino & Campana (2016)). The proliferation of large amounts of digital data created in the study of cultural heritage materials offers new opportunities and challenges for both dissemination and analysis. Capture technologies such as photogrammetry for instance, produce a large amount of metadata in both the acquisition and processing phases. The exploitation of this metadata is crucial not only for producing a richer and more robust archive, but also for creating greater opportunities to allow for machine analysis of the data and interaction with deep learning routines. There are 3 categories of 3D production metadata: 1.
Metadata produced in the acquisition and processing of objects e.g. Exchangeable File Format (EXIF) data that accompanies photographic images. This metadata is essential for both the processing part of the workflow, and for capturing digitising method i.e. the ‘how’ of acquiring 3D data.
2.
Metadata produced when annotations are created for the objects. Using visual and textual tools, historians, sociologists, and archaeologists, for instance, may add information to objects or parts of objects.
3.
Metadata used for searching and analysis.
Fig. 3. System Architecture Diagram 9. SYNTHESIS: AN DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE The above suggests a new architecture which would both guide the work of the lab, and embody the human-machine symbiotic approach envisioned in Cooley’s work. Standards are required to open up the use of any system to an international audience and to provide interoperability between systems. Historically the library has always been to the forefront of providing ways of cataloguing items. An early output from research on the Cooley collection has been the decision to employ the METS metadata standard as developed by the American Library of Congress as a means of describing diverse items digitally. There are many providers of data to this system and it has naturally evolved in a Human Centred Design (HCD) fashion putting the human “front and centre” so to speak. Automation in the system back end involves mapping of inputs to the updated METS standard, along with validation, storage, translation to output formats and retrieval features. Also, where required, standards in the form of those created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C (2019)) will be used.
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This system embodies “human machine symbiosis” which Cooley saw “as a collaboration of human judgement and the calculation capacity of the machine” (Gill ( 2016)). So far, the work on the digitalisation has led to the evolution of a fledgling “Community of Practice” and the development of the new lab within the Cooley Room provides a focal point around which this community can begin to thrive. 10. CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL REMARKS This paper suggests that it is becoming possible to deploy human and machine systems to automate and digitise important aspects of the highly complex curation process, including both tangible and intangible cultural heritage as envisaged by UNESCO. At the emerging research laboratory at WIT, curators of the artefacts have been open to using technology as an aid. The technology has been warmly “invited” to play its’ role in the curation process, which itself is sometimes a surprising process(s) from a systems and data management perspective. The challenge for systems designers is to valorise the central role of the tacit knowledge of curators who passionately call forth the stories behind the artefacts. This must be respectfully and tenderly honoured in systems design. In this symbiosis of human and machine an interwoven ballet-like interplay between archive, curator and technology is called into being. Although it is a new topic for IFAC scientists, IFAC research and praxis needs to focus more attention on solutions which help maintain a diverse cultural heritage. This is a major agenda item for TECIS aligning with its “international stability” and “culture” objectives. This paper expands digital cultural heritage studies recently appearing in TECIS by synthesising a technical architecture which creates new directions for IFAC research, rethinking the role of automation as a means of valorising human meanings, knowledge, skill and customs and the artefacts that express them, according to the stated aims of the World Heritage Convention and the sustainability goals of the United Nations. It is envisaged that this platform, with its automatic, machine intelligent capabilities, complementing, augmenting and supporting human cognition and capability, will take years to develop. As it unfolds, and as the laboratory solves various technical and non-technical challenges, new opportunities and challenges for automation systems science will emerge. REFERENCES D. Bell (1999). “Monastic Libraries: 1400–1557”, in L. Hellinga & J. Trapp (Eds.), Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 229-254.
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M. Cooley (2019). Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology, Nottingham: Spokesman. CORDIS (2017). “i-Treasures: Capturing the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Learning the Rare Know-How of Living Human Treasures”, cordis.europa.eu/docs/projects/cnect/6/600676/080/delivera bles/001-iTREASURESd13itreasuresfinalreportfinal.pdf (accessed 7/4/19) B. Dutailly, S. Eusèbe, V. Grimaud, N. Lefèvre & M. Quantin (2018). “Life cycle of 3d data for cultural heritage”, Visual Heritage 2018, Vienna, Austria. J. Eaton & S. Bodington (1978). Science and Social Action, Allison & Busby: London. M. Flanagan (2002). “The Contribution of Irish Missionaries and Scholars to Medieval Christianity”, in B. Bradshaw & D. Keogh (eds), Christianity in Ireland: Revisiting the Story, Columba Press: Dublin, pp.30-43. B. Furrie (2009). Understanding MARC Bibliographic: MAchine-Readable Cataloging, Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office, US. K. Gill (2016). “Architect or Bee? Mike Cooley: the Human Spirit”, AI and Society, 31 (4), pp 435–437. P. Groumpos (2018). “Overcoming Intelligently Some of the Drawbacks of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps”, Proc. Of 9th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications (IISA). METS (2010). Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard, Digital Library Federation, USA. F. Remondino (2011). "Heritage Recording and 3D Modeling with Photogrammetry and 3D Scanning", Remote Sensing, 3(6), pp 1104-1138. F. Remindino and S. Campana (eds.) (2016). 3D Recording & Modelling in Archaeology & Cultural Heritage: Theory & Best Practices, BAR, Oxford, pp 3-4. D. Soselia, S. Jijavadze, L. Shugliashvili & M. Tsintsadze (2018). “Automatic Complex Handwriting Recognition Systems”, IFAC Papers Online, 51-30, pp. 161-65. L. Stapleton, Smith, D. & Murphy, F. (2005). ‘A HumanCentred Systems approach to the Management of Tacit Knowledge,’ Artificial Int. & Society, 19(2), pp. 159-179. UNESCO (1972). Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural & Natural Heritage, unesco.org/archive/convention-en.pdf (accessed 3/4/19).
M. Cooley (1982). Architect or Bee? The Human Price of Technology, South End Press: London.
UNESCO (2019). Living Heritage and Indigenous Peoples: Convention For The Safeguarding Of Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO.
M. Cooley (2008). “On Human-Machine Symbiosis”, in S. Gill (ed.) Cognition, Communication and Interaction, Springer, London, pp 457-485.
W3C (2019). W3C Standards, w3.org/standards (accessed 07/4/19)
ScienceDirect IFAC PapersOnLine 52-25 (2019) 562–567 A Semi-Automated Systems Architecture for Cultural Heritage A Semi-Automated Systems Architecture for Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions Digitising Cultural Heritage A Semi-Automated Systemsfor Architecture for Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions Digitising Cultural Heritage A Semi-Automated Systemsfor Architecture for Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions for Digitising Cultural Heritage Sustainable Solutions for Digitising Cultural Heritage L. Stapleton*, Brenda O’Neill**, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin L. Stapleton*, Brenda O’Neill**, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin Dalton****** L. Stapleton*, Brenda O’Neill**, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin Dalton****** Ireland, email: [email protected] Dalton****** L. Stapleton*, Brenda*INSYTE, O’Neill**,WIT, Kieran Cronin***, Patrick McInerney****, Matthew Hendrick***** & Eoin *INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, [email protected] **INSYTE, WIT,email: Ireland, email: [email protected] Dalton****** *INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, email: [email protected] **INSYTE, Ireland, email: [email protected] ***Luke WaddingWIT, Library/INSYTE, email: [email protected] **INSYTE, WIT,email: Ireland, email: [email protected] *INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, [email protected] ***Luke Wadding Library/INSYTE, [email protected] ****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, email:email: [email protected] ***Luke WaddingWIT, Library/INSYTE, email: [email protected] **INSYTE, Ireland, email: [email protected] ****INSYTE, WIT, email: Ireland, email: [email protected] *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland [email protected] **** ****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland, email:email: [email protected] ***Luke Wadding Library/INSYTE, [email protected] *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] **** *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] **** ****INSYTE, WIT,Ireland Ireland, email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] **** *****INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] ****** INSYTE, WIT, Ireland email: [email protected] Abstract: The loss of cultural diversity impacts international stability by undermining sustainable Abstract: Thegoals. loss of cultural is diversity international stability by undermining development UNESCO chargedimpacts with promoting cultural diversity, guided by sustainable important, Abstract: The loss of cultural diversity impacts international stability by undermining sustainable development goals. conventions. UNESCO is IFAC charged with promoting cultural diversity, guided by application important, globally recognised, researchers have recently directed attention to the development UNESCO is chargedimpacts with promoting cultural diversity, guided by sustainable important, Abstract: Thegoals. loss of cultural diversity international stability byattention undermining globally recognised, conventions. IFAC researchers have recently directed the application of automation systems to the preservation of cultural heritage. This paper reports to developments in globally recognised, conventions. IFAC researchers have recently directed attention to the application development goals. UNESCO is charged with promoting cultural diversity, guided by important, of automation to the preservation of cultural This paper reports digital cultural systems heritage and media automation. Using a heritage. human-centred approach, the developments paper presentsina of automation systems to the preservation of cultural heritage. This paperattention reports to developments in globally recognised, conventions. IFAC researchers have recently the application digital and media automation. aofhuman-centred approach, the paper presents systemscultural projectheritage which places culture at the Using centre technicaldirected development. Leading metadataa digital cultural systems heritage and media automation. Using a heritage. human-centred approach, the developments paper presentsina of automation to the preservation of cultural This paper reports systems which places culture at the centre of technical Leading standardsproject are surveyed and machine-readable ontological modelsdevelopment. proposed which can metadata describe systemscultural projectheritage which and places culture at the Using centre aofhuman-centred technical development. Leading metadataa digital automation. approach, the paper presents standards are tangible surveyedcultural andmedia machine-readable ontological modelsThis proposed which can describe intangible and heritage as envisaged by UNESCO. study proposes a digitisation standardsproject are surveyed and machine-readable ontological modelsdevelopment. proposed which can metadata describe systems whichcultural places culture at the centre oflinked technical Leading intangible and tangible heritage asinenvisaged by UNESCO. study proposes digitisation process which encodes artefact properties XML to be into This the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises intangible and tangible cultural heritage as envisaged by UNESCO. This study proposes a digitisation standards are surveyed and machine-readable ontological models proposed which can describe process which encodes properties in XML to be linked intoThis the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises an architecture to guideartefact the work of a new research laboratory. study embodies new transprocess which encodes cultural artefact properties XML to be linked into This the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises intangible and tangible heritage asinenvisaged by UNESCO. study proposes an architecture to guide the at work of a new laboratory. This embodies a digitisation new transdisciplinary research agenda the interface ofresearch systems engineering and study the humanities. an architecture to guideartefact the work of a new research laboratory. study embodies new transprocess which encodes properties in of XML to be linked intoThis the ontologies. It alsoa synthesises disciplinary research agenda at the interface systems engineering and the humanities. disciplinary research agenda at the interface ofresearch systems engineering and the humanities. © 2019, IFAC (International Federation ofnew Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. an architecture to guide the work of a laboratory. This study embodies a new transKeywords: Developing countries, systems development, culture disciplinary research agenda at the interface of systems engineering and the humanities. Keywords: Developing countries, systems development, culture Keywords: Developing countries, systems development, culture Keywords: Developing countries, systems development,digital culturesystems can support the work of curators and sets 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIdigital systems canforsupport work of curators based and sets out a programme a new the research laboratory on 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIAUTOMATIC ARCHIVE SYSTEMS digital systems can support the work of curators and sets out a programme forsystem a new principles research laboratory based ona the human-machine of Mike Cooley, 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIAUTOMATIC ARCHIVE SYSTEMS out a programme a new the research laboratory based on digital systems canforsupport work (c.f. of and sets the human-machine system principles of curators Mike Cooley, a leading contemporary cybernetician Cooley (1982), International stability research paysSYSTEMS attention to the AUTOMATIC ARCHIVE 1. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SEMIthe human-machine system principles of Mike Cooley, out a programme for a new research laboratory based on leading contemporary cybernetician Cooley (1982),a (2018); Gill (2016)). The next section(c.f. places this initiative International pays attention to the application AUTOMATIC ofstability digital research automation systems to cultural ARCHIVE SYSTEMS leading contemporarysystem cybernetician (c.f. Cooley (1982),a International ofstability research pays attention to the the principles of Mike (2018); Gill international (2016)). The context next section places thisCooley, initiative in a human-machine broader and shows why this work application digital systems cultural heritage. Soselia et al automation (2018) described an tointelligent (2018); Gill (2016)). The next section(c.f. places this initiative application ofstability digital research automationpays systems to cultural leading contemporary cybernetician Cooley (1982), International attention to the in broader international context and shows why is aimportant for international stability. This this in work turn heritage. al (2018) described anandintelligent applicationSoselia used toetsupport the identification curating in a broader international context and shows work heritage. Soselia et al automation (2018) described intelligent (2018); Gill systems (2016)). The next section placeswhy this this initiative application of digital systemsan tocuneiform cultural is important for international This in challenges engineers tostability. rethink their roleturn in application to support the identification curating of ancient used Georgian manuscripts written inand is aimportant for international stability. This this in work turn applicationSoselia used toetsupport the identification andintelligent curating in broaderdevelopment. international contexttoand shows why heritage. almanuscripts (2018) challenges systems engineers rethink their role in sustainable of ancient Georgian written in first cuneiform script. Soselia et al (2018) was described one of thean papers challenges systems engineers tostability. rethink This their in roleturn in of ancient used Georgian manuscripts written inandcuneiform is important for international application toalsupport the identification curating sustainable development. script. Soselia (2018) was one of how the first papers published in et IFAC which showed intelligent sustainable development. script. Soselia et al (2018) was one of the first papers challenges systems engineers to rethink their role in of ancient in Georgian written in cuneiform published IFAC manuscripts which how intelligent automation technology solved showed difficult problems in the 2. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL, published in et IFAC whichwasshowed how intelligent sustainable development. script. Soselia al (2018) one of the first papers automation technology difficult work problems in the 2. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL, field of cultural heritage.solved Their ongoing has opened SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT automation in technology which solved showed difficult problems in the 2. CULTURAL HERITAGE AND GLOBAL, published how intelligent field ofresearch cultural IFAC heritage. Their has opened SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT new trajectories in ongoing TECISwork research. The Cultural refersHERITAGE to the DEVELOPMENT legacyAND of physical artifacts, field of cultural heritage.solved Their ongoing work has opened SUSTAINABLE automation technology difficult in The the 2. heritage CULTURAL GLOBAL, new research trajectories TECIS problems research. Community Research and inDevelopment Information Cultural heritage refers tooften the DEVELOPMENT legacy of physical technologies and various, intangible, features artifacts, of some new ofresearch trajectories in ongoing TECISwork research. The field cultural heritage. Their has opened SUSTAINABLE Community Development Service detail Research a Learningand Management SystemInformation (LMS) for Cultural heritage refers to the legacy of physical artifacts, technologies and various, features of some culturally-distinct group often that intangible, are inherited from past Community Research and inDevelopment Information new research trajectories TECIS research. The Service detail a Learning Management System (LMS) for Intangible Cultural Heritage using sensors (CORDIS technologies and various, intangible, features artifacts, of some Cultural heritage refers tooften the present legacy of physical culturally-distinct groupin that are inherited from past generations, maintained the time and curated and Service detail a Learning Management System (LMS) for Community Research and Development Information Intangible Cultural using (2017)). This systemHeritage preserves andsensors teaches(CORDIS a) rare culturally-distinct groupinoften thatpresent are inherited from past technologies and intangible, features of some generations, the time and curated and nurtured formaintained thevarious, benefit of future generations. Cultural Intangible Cultural Heritage using sensors (CORDIS Service detail a Learning Management System (LMS) for (2017)). and teaches a) rare traditionalThis songs,system b) rarepreserves dance interactions, c) traditional generations, maintained present time and curated and culturally-distinct groupin the that are inherited from past nurtured for the benefit of future generations. Cultural diversity fosters cross-cultural dialog and encourages (2017)). This systemHeritage preserves and teaches(CORDIS a) rare Intangible Cultural using traditional songs, rare dance interactions, c) traditional craftsmanship i.e. b) pottery making usingsensors motion sensors to nurtured formaintained the benefit of present future time generations. Cultural generations, in the and curated and diversity fosters between cross-cultural dialog culturally and encourages mutual respect and across diverse traditional songs,system b) rarepreserves dance interactions, c) traditional (2017)). data This and teaches a) craftsmanship i.e. using sensors to compare of pottery master making craftsman andmotion student andrare d) diversity for fosters cross-cultural dialog and encourages nurtured thebetween benefit of future mutual respect andpotentially acrossgenerations. culturally diverse communities. However, it is threatenedCultural by the craftsmanship i.e. b) pottery makinginteractions, using motion sensors to traditional songs, rare dance c) traditional compare data music of master craftsmanThis andand student d) contemporary composition. other and studies mutual respect between and across culturally diverse diversitymarch fosters cross-cultural and There encourages communities. However, it is potentially threatened byhave the onward of globalisation anddialog automation. compare data i.e. of pottery master making craftsman andmotion student and d) craftsmanship using sensors to contemporary music composition. This and and automation other studies demonstrate the application of control in communities. However, it is potentially threatened diverse by the mutual respect across onward march of between globalisation and automation. have been cases where cultural and material andculturally folk There technology contemporary music composition. This and other studies compare data of master craftsman and student and d) demonstrate the application of control and automation in cultural heritage preservation, transmission and craft onward march of globalisation and automation. communities. However, ismaterial potentially threatened byhave the been cases where cultural and folk There technology have been exploited asitintellectual property. Stapleton, demonstrate the application of control and in contemporary music composition. This and automation other cultural heritage preservation, andstudies craft education. This paper contributestransmission to that discourse by been cases where cultural material and folk There technology onward march of globalisation and automation. have have exploited asdescribe intellectual property. inStapleton, Smith been & Murphy (2005) folk traditions northern cultural heritage preservation, transmission and craft demonstrate application of control automation in education. This paper contributes to and that discourse for by proposing athesemi-automated digital architecture have cases been exploited as intellectual property. Stapleton, been where cultural material and folk technology Smith Murphy describe folkskills, traditions in northern India in& which are(2005) embedded unique knowledge and education.heritage This paper contributestransmission to that discourse by cultural preservation, and craft proposing a semi-automated digital architecture for curating cultural heritage according to international Smith been & Murphy (2005) describe folk traditions inStapleton, northern have exploited asbrass intellectual property. India in which embedded unique skills, and technology by are which artefacts are knowledge manufactured. proposing This a semi-automated digital architecture for education. paper contributes to that discourse by curating heritage international sustainablecultural development goals.according It explorestoways in which India in& which are(2005) embedded unique knowledge and Smith Murphy describe folkskills, traditions in northern technology by which brass artefacts are manufactured. curating cultural heritage toways international proposing a semi-automated for sustainable development goals.according Itdigital exploresarchitecture in which technology by are which brass unique artefacts are knowledge manufactured. India in which embedded skills, and sustainablecultural development goals.according It explorestoways in which curating heritage international technology by which brass artefacts are manufactured. sustainable development goals. It explores ways in 2405-8963 © 2019, IFAC (International Federation of Automaticwhich Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Peer review under responsibility of International Federation of Automatic Control. 10.1016/j.ifacol.2019.12.606
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These customs and traditions have been passed down and curated for centuries by families and communities through various socio-cultural processes. Automated factories made it difficult for these artisans to make a living from the brass artefacts. The tragedy was that, not only would the artefacts no longer be produced in indigenous communities, but the technologies, processes, stories and, indeed, the very life of the community in which these artefacts were made, would be lost to history. Such a loss of cultural diversity undermines international stability and acts as a barrier to sustainable development. UNESCO has established a World Heritage Centre to implement the “Word Heritage Convention” (WHC), one of a number of instruments designed to deliver global cultural diversity objectives (UNESCO (1972)). The WHC addresses both biodiversity and cultural diversity as means to achieve sustainable development. UNESCO (1972; 2019) defines 2 kinds of cultural heritage: Tangible Cultural Heritage: architecture, sites of historical importance, monuments, artifacts and other physical objects considered to be important and in need of preservation and curation. These typically include objects related to some specific cultural context. These objects offer a concrete basis for ideas and meanings and may validate a sense of shared community identity. Preserving tangible cultural heritage recognises the critical importance of a past in which artefacts were made and used, and helps people to connect with their story. This validates collective memories, providing a literal way of connecting to the past. Intangible Heritage: living expressions inherited from ancestors and passed on to descendants. These include oral traditions, performing arts, social rituals and customs, tacit knowledge, skills and practices. This knowledge is not frozen but shifts over time as it is interpreted and reinterpreted and is a treasury of knowledge and skills transmitted across generations and communities. It has important socio-economic benefits for both developing and developed regions. The internationally recognised significance of cultural heritage challenges automation systems engineering to rethink the role of automation in human society. Cooley (2018) pays attention to the need for a human/machine systems approach which valorises human knowledge, placing it at the centre of the proliferation of automation. This raises the question: What would a system comprising a symbiosis of human and machine cognition and capability for archiving cultural heritage look like? 3. THE LIBRARY IN HISTORY There is great emphasis on the control and exploitation of knowledge through patents and IP as the “property” of certain individuals and groups. It is self-evident that these interests are in conflict with the goals of institutions like UNESCO. Instead of placing commercial interests at the centre of knowledge curation, do social institutions exist which curate cultural heritage and human knowledge on behalf of society? Can these institutions gain from a
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symbiosis of human and machine system designed as a socially useful way of curating artefacts and placing them in their intangible cultural context? Historically, libraries have taken on the institutional role of repositories for cultural material of great importance to civilisation. For example, in Ireland book collections were at the centre of monastic life in the Celtic church leading to the immense contribution of Irish scholars to intellectual activity on mainland Europe during the pre-Carolingian period (Flanagan (2002)). It was around libraries that the first British universities developed at Oxford and Cambridge, whose statutes were based on ancient monastic regulations. In the 14th and 15th centuries monastic and university libraries and their librarians were at the centre of social change in Britain (Bell (1999)) and, even later, libraries were at the heart of social change in 18th and 19th century Ireland. Libraries were sanctuaries in which cultural heritage survived. Librarians inherit a long tradition, and possess the scholarship and skill, to nurture, organise and make accessible cultural heritage. For this reason, this research centres around a large, publicallyaccessible, Irish university library which contains archives of national and international importance. 4. MIKE COOLEY AND THE COOLEY COLLECTION The Cooley Collection is a unique archive of someone possessed of a deep sense of what a scientific culture meant for workers in factories, artisans and traditional communities. Cooley was the first recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (alternative to the Nobel Prize) and consistently placed human needs at the heart of automation projects. He was a founder of the human-centred systems movement, which led to “anthropocentric systems” in Germany and informed “socio-technical systems” thinkers in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia. His work valorised human tacit knowledge and skill, arguing that machine intelligence should augment, not replace, human endeavour (Cooley (1982); 2018)). The family of Professor Cooley donated his personal library, correspondence and materials to the Luke Wadding Library at Waterford Institute of Technology. This manifested in the form of 34 boxes, including about 1400 physical books, and the collection was formally opened to scholars and students in March 2019. The primary goal was curation with a view to digitising the collection and organising metadata while staying loyal to the values of Human Centred Systems which Mike Cooley founded and promoted. The collection contains a very diverse range of formats and material types including books, letters, papers, VHS, audio cassettes, 35mm slides, ephemera and photographs. Controlling and automating (or even semi-automating) a coherent curation and, thereby, providing online and offline access to digital and physical versions of these artefacts is an immense challenge requiring a sophisticated, low-cost, digital architecture wrapped around the physical archiving activities of WIT librarians. Many artefacts require preliminary conversion in order to make them accessible to
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researchers. For example, in 2019, few people have ready access to the video players needed to playback VHS tapes which record important meetings in the labour movement dating back to the early 1980s. The scope of the books in Professor Cooley’s personal library traverses the Dewey catalogue spectrum. It was essential for archivists to utilise bibliographic series linking and branding the collection to contextualise and manage it within the wider library. The Cooley Collection presents the Library with other challenges and opportunities. It must prepare a full inventory of the collection, provide online public access and attract scholars and students to engage with, and enhance, the collection as cultural heritage. One of the exciting possibilities for both science and humanities education is to create digital systems embodying a new pedagogical approach within the Institute. The vision is to place the archive at the centre of the classroom and the students’ learning experience, interpreted and reinterpreted by lecturers and students alike. This implies creating digital “versions” of the artefacts, embedded in systems which embody the semantic meanings surrounding the objects, and not just their technical and administrative descriptions. 5. THE NEW RESEARCH LABORATORY A series of computer science projects were launched culminating in a proposal for a major new laboratory located in the library’s digitisation hub and situated amongst the cultural heritage collections, including the Cooley Collection. The lab team includes librarians, technologists and other researchers working together to produce systems based on principles of human-machine symbiosis and incorporating ways to capture, control and interpret complex digital objects and their metadata. All work at the laboratory will be pursued according to Cooley’s espoused values and substantive legacy. The lab will focus on socially-useful outcomes which valorise human knowledge whilst optimising the collective capabilities of human and machine intelligence and cognition (Groumpos (2018)). Human-centred systems design principles as set out in Professor Cooley’s work will inform its activities. Physically, collections will be available in the laboratory itself which will be secured using smart cards and curated by librarians. Technically, archive objects will be digitised and described and embedded in a complex machine-readable knowledge network accessible through online channels comprising various metadata. The technological architecture and semiautomated process includes digitisation techniques, the extension of library metadata standards and use cases of an advanced digital library which lies at the heart of society itself. The purpose of the laboratory is to explore and solve research problems in the matrix set out in Table 1. The next sections survey a proposed technological architecture and summarise key processes associated with semiautomatically archiving cultural heritage as follows: 1.
Knowledge-Based Art & Media Systems:
a. Descriptive Metadata. b. Ontology for embedding artefacts in meaningful, machine-readable knowledge web. 2.
Digitisation Processes & Technologies.
The first projects focussed on metadata standards and gave rise to a broad research agenda summarised in Table 1. Table 1. Core Purpose of the Laboratory
6. METADATA STANDARDS There was an opportunity to use emerging database and AI systems to help control and manage library archives. This involves difficult challenges associated with digital archive management processes, metadata and knowledge models. For brevity, this section will briefly review the results of the two initial projects associated with the archive. It then proceeds to review digitalisation challenges, a vision for a semantic web capability and then synthesises a generic architecture for future projects at the lab. Metadata Standards for Archives Like other archives, the Cooley Collection comprised a great variety of objects, from books to video tape to religious artefacts to correspondence and very many other formats. Once an object is digitised it has to be formally described so as to make it amenable for curation on a digital library archive. It is possible to define our own data models for describing the objects but this would create difficulties for an online system. For example, if other libraries want to access our system, they would need to use our formatting conventions. It was decided to evaluate widely used existing descriptive metadata standards that have been developed for digital libraries. The standard currently used in the library is the XML-based MARC standard (Furrie (2009)). The first task was to identify criteria for evaluating standards like MARC and then perform a formal assessment of each standard according to the criteria. Evaluation criteria included interoperability i.e. the capacity of the standard to support technological interoperability across multiple platforms and across the web. Extensibility criteria assessed the extent to which the standard could be extended to other objects not yet covered in the standard i.e. its amenability for enhancement and extension into the objects in the Cooley archive. It must
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also be theoretically possible to describe a wide variety of different objects. We also wanted standards to provide for a wide range of object metadata including a basic description of the objects, structural information (e.g. descriptions of an object structure where the digital object is structurally located in multiple files and media). Finally, the standard should encode administrative metadata associated with archiving itself. The evaluation findings are summarised in Table 2. The Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS (2010)) was selected from this assessment. Next, digital objects were encoded in METS. METS had not been used previously for similar artefacts. For example, the archive included scanned correspondences whose metadata had not before been controlled by METS. On completion of the initial encoding, archivists were asked to formally review the encoding and compare it to the MARC standard they currently used. They reported that METS was a far richer way of describing key attributes in these objects. METS is used by some libraries in the USA but has not received much attention from Irish libraries. The next step was to test METS’ capacity to handle intangible cultural heritage. Focussing on correspondence, we next explored if METS could go beyond the control of attribute data, and encode what these letters “meant” i.e. the semantics.
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The Cooley Collection expresses the personal, intellectual development of Mike Cooley. By embedding collection artefacts in a web of knowledge about Mike Cooley we could potentially extend to and incorporate knowledge externally located somewhere on the web. For example, using descriptive logic could we map a correspondence about Cooley’s trade union activities to a YouTube video segment from a documentary on Cooley and an audio recording of a meeting in the 1980s in mp3 format to which the letter referred? Theoretically this can be achieved using ontologies based around the semantic web stack (to ensure interoperability across the web). Projects at the lab have already begun to specify ways in which the METS standard mentioned above might be linked into an XML-compliant, machine-readable ontology which can then be accessed via a user interface using, for example, Apache/Java-based open source software applications to keep costs down.
Table 2. Metadata Standards Evaluated (METS selected)
Fig. 1. Ontology Extract (focus: Object Properties)
7. SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGIES Archiving in libraries involves an appreciation of the social, cultural and intellectual context of artefacts. The Dewey Decimal Cataloguing (DDC) system developed in the 19th century, and still widely used by libraries, assigns books in categories of knowledge. By taking advantage of developments in knowledge modelling, it might be possible to extend these classifications, placing artefacts in a much broader intellectual, social, historical and cultural context. In this way, digital systems might be used to interweave machine-readable information about tangible and intangible cultural heritage, preserving both without ossifying them.
Fig. 2. Ontology Small Extract (focus: Historicity) Some basic knowledge associated with the correspondence was mapped into an ontology. The ontology uses description logic to define triplets in a graph which is formalised using languages defined in the semantic web stack, controlled by the W3C and therefore machine readable. Figures 1 and 2 show small, simplified, extracts from the ontology. The machine model includes both format information usually associated with METS (Fig. 1.) and intangible culture concepts associated with historical context (Fig. 2.). The figures show semi-formal depictions of the graphs. The machine languages (including XML, RDF and OWL) used to formally define the knowledge
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comply with existing web standards controlled by the W3C. The machine can perform basic reasoning by automatically navigating the relationships between the concepts. Figure 1 highlights how METS encoding can be integrated into the ontology. This is possible because the ontology language (OWL) is able to describe METS-type data and is, like METS, XML compliant (they are encoded in the same machine language standards stack). Other machine reasoning capabilities could be used to populate the media databases such as those described in Soselia et al (2018) which involve neural network applications. The ontology can be extended to include videos depicting all kinds of intangible heritage such as crafts, encoded as instances of important, culturally distinctive concepts.
It is still common for repositories of 3D data to ignore, or worse still, dispense with altogether, the metadata created in the production of a digital object - often all that is viewable is a representation of the digital object only. However, the value of the metadata in the construction of the archive cannot be underestimated. The question then is how may this complex collection of metadata be organised into a robust, manageable and searchable archive? The open source software alTAG3D helps considerably. This software, created by the 3D SHS Consortium, produces as output XML and is fully capable of capturing the Life Cycle of 3D Data for Cultural Heritage (Dutailly (2018)), an established best-practice methodology in the field of digital cultural heritage recording.
8. DIGITISING CULTURAL HERITAGE The process of digitisation is highly technical and a critical aspect of the curation of complex, culturally-important collections. It is very important that any encoding produced by this process be XML compliant so that it can be incorporated into the overall metadata and knowledgebased system described earlier. The technical domain of digital heritage recording is a vibrant and rapidlydeveloping field. Well-established techniques used to digitally capture cultural material include laser scanning, close-range photogrammetry and Reflective Transmission Imaging (RTI). These techniques can be used to create multimedia museum displays as well as preserve vulnerable tangible and intangible cultural material (Remindino (2011)). Most importantly, the digital recording of cultural material can also be seen as ‘a tool for promoting the participation of society in its conservation’ (Remindino & Campana (2016)). The proliferation of large amounts of digital data created in the study of cultural heritage materials offers new opportunities and challenges for both dissemination and analysis. Capture technologies such as photogrammetry for instance, produce a large amount of metadata in both the acquisition and processing phases. The exploitation of this metadata is crucial not only for producing a richer and more robust archive, but also for creating greater opportunities to allow for machine analysis of the data and interaction with deep learning routines. There are 3 categories of 3D production metadata: 1.
Metadata produced in the acquisition and processing of objects e.g. Exchangeable File Format (EXIF) data that accompanies photographic images. This metadata is essential for both the processing part of the workflow, and for capturing digitising method i.e. the ‘how’ of acquiring 3D data.
2.
Metadata produced when annotations are created for the objects. Using visual and textual tools, historians, sociologists, and archaeologists, for instance, may add information to objects or parts of objects.
3.
Metadata used for searching and analysis.
Fig. 3. System Architecture Diagram 9. SYNTHESIS: AN DIGITAL CULTURAL HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE The above suggests a new architecture which would both guide the work of the lab, and embody the human-machine symbiotic approach envisioned in Cooley’s work. Standards are required to open up the use of any system to an international audience and to provide interoperability between systems. Historically the library has always been to the forefront of providing ways of cataloguing items. An early output from research on the Cooley collection has been the decision to employ the METS metadata standard as developed by the American Library of Congress as a means of describing diverse items digitally. There are many providers of data to this system and it has naturally evolved in a Human Centred Design (HCD) fashion putting the human “front and centre” so to speak. Automation in the system back end involves mapping of inputs to the updated METS standard, along with validation, storage, translation to output formats and retrieval features. Also, where required, standards in the form of those created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C (2019)) will be used.
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This system embodies “human machine symbiosis” which Cooley saw “as a collaboration of human judgement and the calculation capacity of the machine” (Gill ( 2016)). So far, the work on the digitalisation has led to the evolution of a fledgling “Community of Practice” and the development of the new lab within the Cooley Room provides a focal point around which this community can begin to thrive. 10. CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL REMARKS This paper suggests that it is becoming possible to deploy human and machine systems to automate and digitise important aspects of the highly complex curation process, including both tangible and intangible cultural heritage as envisaged by UNESCO. At the emerging research laboratory at WIT, curators of the artefacts have been open to using technology as an aid. The technology has been warmly “invited” to play its’ role in the curation process, which itself is sometimes a surprising process(s) from a systems and data management perspective. The challenge for systems designers is to valorise the central role of the tacit knowledge of curators who passionately call forth the stories behind the artefacts. This must be respectfully and tenderly honoured in systems design. In this symbiosis of human and machine an interwoven ballet-like interplay between archive, curator and technology is called into being. Although it is a new topic for IFAC scientists, IFAC research and praxis needs to focus more attention on solutions which help maintain a diverse cultural heritage. This is a major agenda item for TECIS aligning with its “international stability” and “culture” objectives. This paper expands digital cultural heritage studies recently appearing in TECIS by synthesising a technical architecture which creates new directions for IFAC research, rethinking the role of automation as a means of valorising human meanings, knowledge, skill and customs and the artefacts that express them, according to the stated aims of the World Heritage Convention and the sustainability goals of the United Nations. It is envisaged that this platform, with its automatic, machine intelligent capabilities, complementing, augmenting and supporting human cognition and capability, will take years to develop. As it unfolds, and as the laboratory solves various technical and non-technical challenges, new opportunities and challenges for automation systems science will emerge. REFERENCES D. Bell (1999). “Monastic Libraries: 1400–1557”, in L. Hellinga & J. Trapp (Eds.), Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 229-254.
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