Partners In Conversation Beyond Cataloging

Deep image semantic annotation enables the cultural heritage community to create rich interactive educational resources that help people to explore artworks and artifacts visually, conceptually and contextually. This presentation will explore use cases led by Marianne Weldon, the Collections Manager for the Art and Artifact Collections at Bryn Mawr College, with technical contributions from Dave Clarke CEO of Synaptica and designer of the Linked Canvas application, and from Robb Detlefs, Director of the Strategic Initiatives at Gallery Systems. Linked Canvas combines Zoomify image annotation technology with Synaptica semantic indexing technology. The data architecture adopts open data standards including the Linked Data Platform, the Web Annotation Data Model and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). These standards promote a collaborative knowledge sharing environment in which internally curated knowledge assets can be connected to and enriched by external knowledge assets. High resolution images of art and artifacts in the Bryn Mawr collection were annotated to describe and comment upon significant visual details. Points of interest were also conceptually indexed using controlled vocabularies including Linked Open Data resources such as the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus. Links were also established from visual details to other internal and external resources to provide additional information such as historical, literary and cultural references and allusions. Guided tours with audio and visual narration were created to offer a range of interpretative commentaries. The use cases developed at Bryn Mawr College were the result of a collaborative effort that spanned multiple departments and disciplines including: Special Collections; History of Art; and Classical and Near Eastern Archeology. The exercise generated learning resources which demonstrate how visual cultural heritage content can be enriched through the process of semantic annotation. Lastly the presentation will discuss the methods used to integrate the annotation and indexing system with existing collections management and web publication systems, including EmbARK and Web Kiosk. Through this integration existing content was used to support the annotation and indexing process, and the new educational resources were made available as a natural extension to the collection-wide resources and interface already provided. Speakers Speaker : David Clarke, CEO, Synaptica Speaker : Robb Detlefs, Director, West Coast Operations and Strategic Initiatives Speaker : Marianne Weldon, Collections Manager, Bryn Mawr College, Synaptica MCN 2016 Presenting Sponsor: Piction New Orleans, LA