This applied research project will "assist sound cultural heritage management of cultural places in the Laura region through the development of a cutting-edge cultural heritage data management system. It will indirectly assist the protection of cultural heritage places through the development of appropriate material for educational purposes on the proposed publicly accessible web page, thereby fostering public appreciation of the rich cultural heritage of the Laura region and decreasing chances of damage to that heritage". The data management system, code-named Matchbox, will be an in-the-box catalogue package for use as a general solution in regional or interest-based communities. The Quinkan Matchbox will enable direct input by those for whom the records are currently maintained by many other organisations and individuals. The community involvement is expected to change the nature of the catalogue records. Together, cultural custodians and other experts will determine how to classify and record information about their resources. They will establish a cultural resource and a resource collection process. It is expected that Matchbox will enable a simple, economical but richer, productive process for creating and managing cultural capital than previous systems.
Earlier attempts to develop data management systems have resulted in incompatible, widely dispersed databases. More recently, the model of subject gateways with Dublin Core (DC) formats has been developed. These catalogues are web-enabled but lack the richness now available from the use of Qualified Dublin Core (QDC) and Resource Description Framework (RDF).
Dublin Core provides a classification model and a metadata set primarily for inclusion in web pages in HTML, the markup language for the world wide web. Each DC element is a category of classification and can be qualified in respect of the element or its values. DC compliant metadata is interchangeable in as much as it is in a common format. Subject gateways are repositories of DC metadata related to web resources and accessed via the gateway as pointers to the original resources. Recently released Qualified Dublin Core elements are structured and so more comprehensive than the original DC elements and can be expressed in XML satisfying the recently developed Resource Description Framework. This richer metadata is interoperable as metadata elements and values can be related one to another.
Cataloguing, performed by trained librarians, is inadequate for the vast numbers of resource collections made available by the web-linking of databases. Commercial solutions have resulted in ‘search engines’ that use techniques such as full-text indexing of resources or referral counting and indexing. While productive, these automatic methods result in lower quality classifications of only a small portion of the resources available and are not appropriately selective or up-to-date for serious researchers or data management. Subject gateways provide an alternative approach. Classification of resources by subject experts, distributed across organisations that share record repositories, rapidly increases the number of relevant resources classified. This strategy is economical as those who own, know about, or care for the resources contribute to their classification, and the resulting records are proving useful when they are the result of "well-intentioned efforts". Matchbox will make the process inclusive of the Indigenous custodians and domain specific research experts.
Aboriginal cultures incorporate complex graphic, oral and symbolic systems, so images and sound are particularly appropriate to their communications styles. Matchbox will use a system that accepts, for any single resource, multiple records and languages, and incorporates multimedia and post hoc annotations. It will incorporate cross-cultural strategies, recognising and respecting Indigenous knowledge systems and processes through the production of a culturally appropriate taxonomy for the Laura cultural resources. These methods will simplify and enrich the conversion of knowledge into discoverable and accessible resources that contribute to the cultural capital of Australia.
The project addresses many issues raised in the "ARC Research of Interest to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Report 59", including research that is "negotiated with appropriate community members". It will provide the infrastructure for, and a means of enhancing, cultural transmission. The communities involved will derive opportunities to develop and apply new IT skills as lead agencies in the management of their cultural heritage data and places.
Matchbox will be distributed ready to load on PC/Web servers, with interaction via HTTP, the standard web protocol, and, where appropriate, Z39.50, the major inter-library protocol.