Presented at the National Digital Forum, Wellington, 20 November 2012. You can also watch the video.

Previously at NDF:

• Jon talked about Linked Open Data…
• Chris talked about making stories…

As we return to the action, Tim is wondering what happens when we bring stories and data together…

As historians, as cultural heritage professionals, as people — we make connections, we make meanings. That’s just what we do.

What really excites me about Linked Open Data is not the promise of smarter searches, but the possibilities for making connections and meanings in ways that are easier to traverse — to explore, to wander, to linger, or even to stumble.

What really frustrates me about Linked Open Data is that we still tend to talk about it as if it’s all engineering — an international plumbing project to pump data around the globe. Linked Open Data doesn’t have to be an industrial undertaking, it can be a craft, a mode of expression. It can be created with love or in anger.

And anyone can do it.

I’m currently working on a project with the Mosman Library in Sydney to collect information about the World War I experiences of local service people. The web resource we’re building will provide Linked Data all the way down. Every time someone adds a story about a person, uploads a photograph, identifies a place, or includes a link to another resource, they will be minting identifiers, creating relationships, documenting properties — sharing their knowledge as Linked Open Data.

It seems to me that Linked Open Data will be a success not when we’ve standardised on a few vocabularies, or linked everything we possibly can to DBpedia, but when have thriving online communities creating and sharing structured data about the things that are important to them. Not just the known and notable, but the local, the contested, the endangered, the ephemeral and the oppressed.

Many of us live within a Western tradition which equates knowledge with accumulation. Linked Open Data promises new means of aggregation, new powers of discovery — lots and lots more stuff! But it would be a tragedy if all we ended up with was a bigger database or a better search engine. I want more. I want new ways of using that data, of playing with structures and scales. I want to build rich contexts around my stories.

Last year I talked about this in a keynote I gave to the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers. To try and demonstrate some of the possibilities, I created a fancy presentation and added a whole lot of linked data to the text of my talk. But it was a bit of a cheat. The text, the triples and the presentation were still pretty much separate. What I really wanted to do was use the linked data to generate alternative views of the text, to take my story and look at it through a variety of linked data powered filters.

So for NDF this year I thought I’d have another go. I set myself a few groundrules:

• Simple tools — should be possible for anyone with a text editor.
• No platforms — no sneaky server-side stuff, it all had to happen in the browser, on the fly.
• No markup madness — I wanted there to be a close relationship between the text and the data, but I wanted the markup process to be practical — something like creating a footnote.

So I hacked together a whole lot of existing Javascript libraries. I used them to extract all the triples from my text and follow external identifiers to get extra information. Then I queried the little databank I’d made to generate four different views of my talk…

WARNING WARNING! Very early demo! Expect bugs and general stupidity!

Now, none of this looks terribly exciting. Visually the various components look pretty familiar — and that’s part of the point, I’m showing how you can re-use existing tools and code libraries.

What’s interesting, I think, is the dialogue that’s evolving between text and data — a dialogue that’s taking place within one, just one, html document.

So here’s the text of my talk to the indexers last year. As you scroll through the document, each paragraph on the screen is examined and information about related entities — people, places, events, objects — are displayed in a sidebar. The text and the sidebar are linked, so if you click on a link in the text more information about the related entity opens in the sidebar.

If you want to look at the resources separately you can. You can re-order, and filter by type.

Then there’s the fairly traditional timeline and map views.

Most of the data that’s being displayed is coming from RDFa within the document, but not all. There are links to GeoNames and DBPedia that are drawing in data on the fly. As more Linked Open Data becomes available these links can become deeper and richer.

It’s a very rough demo and I have a long to-do list — for example better links between the data views and the text, showing their context within the narrative. But hopefully you can get an idea of how it might be possible to build data-rich stories — with layers and views that enrich, inform and engage with the narrative.

And all just with one html page, a bit of RDFa and a few Javascript libraries.

There’s no magic.

You might be wondering about my ground-rules — why did I constrain myself? Well, it has to do with this thing we call ‘access’. Oftentimes when we talk about access we mean the power to consume — the power for people to take what they’re given.

But to really have access, for something to be truly open, people also have to have the power to create. To take what they’re given and build something new — to challenge, to criticise, to offer alternatives.

That means allowing people the space to have ideas, giving them the confidence to experiment, providing useful tools and the knowledge to use them. That’s not a job for any particular institution, or sector, it’s a challenge for all of us who build things to strip away the magic and invite others to join in.

And I think it’s pretty important. I don’t really want to live in a world where data is just something that other people collect about and for us. I want slow data, as Chris described last year. I want us to enjoy the textures and tastes and not get addicted to the processed product. I want to create, enrich, wield and wonder.

So my vision of the future of Linked Open Data, is not of the Giant Global Graph linking all knowledge. But a revolutionary army of data-artisans, hand-crafting their richly contextualised stories into a glorious, messy, confusing, infuriating, WONDERFUL tapestry.

Now I know you’re all just waiting for me to press the BOOM! button.

So let’s blow some shit up!

Tim Sherratt, review of Treasures of the Museum, Victoria, Australia and Land Nation People: Stories from the National Museum of Australia, in Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 16, no. 1, 2005, pp. 122-125.

Australia is blessed, it seems, with a frightening abundance of treasures. A quick survey of our cultural institutions reveals an escalating ‘treasures race’, as libraries, museums, and archives bombard the public with accounts of their rarest, most beautiful, and most interesting items. The State Library of Victoria, for example, has published a lavish description of its ‘treasures’, and features them prominently on its redesigned website. The National Library of Australia also has an online display of its most treasured holdings, hoping to bring in sponsorship for a permanent ‘treasures gallery’. Meanwhile, the ‘Treasures Gallery’ at the National Archives of Australia is already up and running, while the South Australian Museum guides visitors around a ‘treasures trail’. The Australian Museum recently presented their ‘treasures’ in a special exhibition, and even the University of Melbourne has catalogued the highlights of its collections in a glossy book of ‘treasures’. Celebrating its 150^th birthday, the Museum of Victoria has made an impressive entry into the fray, with a well-designed treasures website, a treasures trail for visitors, and a beautiful volume simply entitled Treasures of the Museum.

All this treasure hunting might be seen a sign of conservative pressure upon our cultural institutions. Instead of seeking to enlarge their roles as places of research, interpretation and debate, it seems safer to fall back on familiar stereotypes of vaults and storehouses, keeping safe the nation’s heritage. Treasures are, by their nature, precious things — often protected by ‘lock and key’, ‘hidden’ from casual scrutiny. It is a label that promotes difference over familiarity, a feeling of reverence and awe over our ability to engage and connect. On the other hand, in an age of interactive exhibits and virtual museums, it is rather reassuring to realise that objects still provide such a potent source of meaning. Institutions trade on their treasures because we crave the experience of authenticity. We want the feeling of wonder, recognition and surprise that only comes from getting up close to the ‘real thing’.

In any case, cultural ‘treasures’ can be identified in a nuanced and reflective way, as Treasures of the Museum well demonstrates. Some of the objects it describes are beautiful, some are perplexing, some are funny, some are horrifying. Seemingly commonplace items are revealed as amongst the most challenging and evocative, such as the red vinyl suitcase with which Cuc Lam fled Vietnam in 1978. That most treasured of treasures, Phar Lap, is included of course. However, ‘the most famous quadruped in Australia’ is introduced by a guest contributor, Phillip Adams, whose recollection of his own childhood fascination, of ‘nose prints on the glass case’, focuses attention not on the object but on our own experiences and memories. The majority of entries, illustrated by a magnificent series of photographs, are by museum staff, and vary in quality and tone. Some are merely descriptive, others offer intriguing fragments of larger stories. There is much pleasure and interest to be gained from repeated dipping and browsing.

Whilst no doubt wishing to claim its own share of treasures, the National Museum of Australia chooses to cast itself not as a repository, but as a ‘storyteller’. Seeking to interpret the ‘national story’ is a brave undertaking, as evidenced by the criticism that has dogged the museum since its opening. Land Nation People: Stories from the National Museum of Australia is a determined restatement of the museum’s commitment ‘to telling the stories of Australia and Australians, and debating the key issues, events and people that have shaped and influenced our nation’. The book provides a condensed version of the museum itself, presenting major themes and selected objects from each of its exhibition areas: ‘First Australians’, ‘Horizons’, ‘Nation’, and ‘Tangled destinies’. With the exhibitions set to change in response to a review foisted on the museum by its critics, the book is an interesting historical document in itself. While the Museum of Victoria celebrates its long and illustrious past, the National Museum of Australia seeks to record the ambitions and achievements of its first few, turbulent years.

By unashamedly drawing attention to the process and practice of storytelling, the National Museum challenges curators, historians, and visitors to face up to the difficulties of narrative. With conservative commentators calling for the reinstitution of grand narratives of Australia’s progress all the way from Cook to cricket, there needs to be greater acceptance that the crafting of engaging and insightful stories from the complexities and contradictions of the past is hard, skilled, and creative work. There are no easy answers.

That said, there is nothing particularly innovative about the storytelling in Land Nation People. The stories are colourful and interesting, though rarely surprising, the themes are important, and like the Treasures of the Museum, the book assembles an intriguing collection of objects and illustrations. Indeed, despite the possible tension between ‘treasures’ and ‘stories’, there is much in the two books that is similar. The organisation of Treasures of the Museum also reflects the institution’s current structure, with the treasures divided into their respective collection areas of ‘Australian Society and Technology’, ‘Indigenous Cultures’, and ‘Sciences’. This is uninspired and unfortunate: Weary Dunlop’s medical instruments, for example, are uncomfortably tacked on to the end of ‘Sciences’, while the anthropological collections of Baldwin Spencer and Donald Thompson, featured in ‘Indigenous cultures’, are separated from their collectors who are locked up in the ‘Sciences’ section. If you are going to take a ‘treasures’ approach, why impose disciplinary boundaries at all? Interestingly, the companion website offers an alternative structure, grouping objects under such headings as ‘Celebrity’, ‘Messages’, ‘Journeys’, and ‘Survivors’.

More importantly, of course, both books are concerned with the relationship between object and story. ‘Museum objects’, remarks the Museum of Victoria’s CEO, ‘are like comets travelling through time and space, trailing streams of meanings’. Both books seek ways of making these meanings visible, and in doing so they reveal connections, contrasts and queries. This process is more explicit in Land Nation People, but Treasures of the Museum traverses much the same thematic territory, relying on assemblage instead of argument to explore the broader significance of its objects. The experience of immigration and arrival feature prominently in both, as does the complexity of indigenous culture. Both also seek to document ways in which we have come to know and understand the continent.

The ‘Tangled Destinies’ section of Land Nation People is most obviously concerned with the interaction of people and environment, but examples of change and adaptation are spread across both volumes. One has the story of William Farrer and his ‘Federation’ wheat, the other counters with the stump-jump plough. The sophistication of indigenous technology, and the ability of indigenous people to adapt to environmental and cultural change are well demonstrated. Both books feature a display of ‘Kimberley points’—spearheads crafted not just from traditional materials, but also from ceramics and glass.

Gesturing towards the supposed inventive streak within the Australian character, Land Nation People introduces two of the best known—and perhaps most overrated—Australian inventions under the banner of ‘Nation’. Yes, where would we be without the Victa mower and the Hills hoist? Treasures of the Museum takes us into less familiar realms with the black box flight recorder and the Shephard micro-ruling engine, which, in the late nineteenth century, pushed the limits of precision measurement. Technologies of measurement and control appear in a variety of guises, reflecting the desire of European settlers to define the limits and boundaries of their new possession. Artefacts from the geodetic survey of Victoria can be contrasted with the Anton Breinl’s hot-air cabinet, used to study the effects of the tropical climate on white workers—both speak to questions of possession and legitimacy. The clock used to maintain standard time throughout Victoria seems to have little in common with the field trowel used by archaeologist John Mulvaney. But both sought to redefine our conception of time: one brought local timekeeping practices within a centralised system, the other helped locate the human occupation of Australia within the immense span of deep time.

The natural sciences, of course, dominate the scientific collections of the Museum of Victoria, reflecting both the nature of the disciplines and the history of the institution. However, featured prominently amongst its ‘treasures’ are not just collections of birds, insects, minerals, and fossils, but the people who assembled them—the collectors themselves. John Gould, Alfred Russel Wallace, William Blandowski, and even Charles Darwin, make an appearance. This is an important inclusion, because it emphasises the process of collecting, the way in which scientific knowledge itself is constructed. Although most of the national science collections went elsewhere, the National Museum effectively uses the stories of Harry Burrell and Colin Mackenzie to similar ends. The lives and works of such individuals offers insight not just into the development of biology, but into the passion for collecting, understanding, and knowing, that motivates science in general.

While it is perhaps the historical and aesthetic dimensions of the scientific collections that make them most appealing, their continuing role in research is vitally important. Treasures of the Museum notes the scientific significance of the many type specimens within its collections, as well as the ongoing work of its staff to develop a cryogenic collection of tissue samples from rare and threatened species. Such a reminder that the collections themselves are living, growing things offers further complexity to the idea of ‘treasures’. Strangely, while the National Museum describes work to conserve and develop the National Historical Collection, there is little mention of its own research activities, particularly in environmental and indigenous history. Surely this too is a story worth telling.

This omission adds to the rather static feeling of Land Nation and People. As a snapshot of the museum, complete with obligatory corporate guff about its cutting edge multimedia technology and innovative architecture, the book seems to be more of a record of a visit­—a reminder or a souvenir—rather than something to be explored and enjoyed for its own sake. Treasures of the Museum, on the other hand, offers the twin pleasures of familiarity and surprise. Museum-tragics like myself, who spent happy days wandering amongst the old Swanston Street exhibitions, will discover many favourites amidst the ‘treasures’. One of the goldfield models is included, as well as the wax fruits and the working models case. At the same time, you have the sense that you are peeking behind the scenes, gaining access to wonders rarely seen in public.

The National Museum is committed to telling a diverse range of stories, but this worthy aim does not seem well-served by Land Nation People. The attempt to downsize the exhibitions for book consumption has taken away any feeling of exploration or uncertainty—it all seems a little too controlled. It is precisely this feeling of exploration that makes Treasures of the Museum so much fun to dip into. There’s more space here to imagine, wonder, and connect. There is much left unsaid, many questions unanswered, and the entries are frustratingly brief. But you are left with the feeling that there is much more to know, many more stories to tell, many more treasures to be revealed.