CHeriCoS

The term "memory institutions" is used throughout many papers in the field of cultural heritage. But till now i couldn't find a reliable source of it. Although you can find this term mainly in publications from around the millenium nobody seems to provide any clear definition or source. It's interesting that till now there is even still no wikipedia article about "memory institution". In this blog post about memory institutions the author quotes an article by Lorcan Dempsey 1999. He claims that

"Archives, libraries and museums are memory institutions: they organise the European cultural and intellectual record. Their collections contain the memory of peoples, communities, institutions and individuals, the scientific and cultural heritage, and the products throughout time of our imagination, craft and learning.

He is quoted many times, but he doesn't provide any source of her definition. On the WWW you will sooner or later find a definition by Birger Hjørland, who says that

Memory institutions [...] are for example libraries, museums, archives, cultural heritage institutions like monuments and places, botanical gardens, zoological gardens and all kinds of "collecting institutions".

His definition is based on a paper his compatriot Roland Hjerppe published in the proceedings of the 3. ISKO-Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark 1994 under the title "A Framework for the Description of Generalized Documents". This source is also quoted several times. But this could hardly be the first definition of "memory institutions". I haven't got the time to dig deeper into this, but a quick google book search reveals much older sources. For example you can find this term in an article in "Opposition", a journal of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, in Issues 13-17 of 1978. The oldest use of this term I could find is in this report in 1972: Libraries and information technology: a national system challenge: a report to the Council on Library Resources. I guess some research will reveal even older usage. Meanwhile any additional hints are welcome.

As announced at the Google Lat Long Blog and several news sites and blogs (at least in germany, e.g. FAZ and Golem or Archivalia and Cibera) Google and the Prado Museum has joined in a real impressive project. But let me ask you a question first: Where in the world is Carmen ... oops ... this man with a pole in his hands? If you are not at least a art historian with a favour for renaissance art you will hardly know. This guy "lives" in spain (formerly germany), is about one third of an inch tall and can be found on the famous self-portrait - well, not as famous as this one - of Albrecht Dürer. Due to the fantastic work done at the Prado with the help of Google now you can check yourself just by sitting in your chair and browsing the web. 14 Masterpieces have been digitized in high resolution and combined with Google Earth's zooming technology. And the resolution really IS high! To quote Clara Rivera Rodriguez from the Google Spain division:

The paintings have been photographed in very high resolution and contain as many as 14,000 million pixels (14 gigapixels). With this high level resolution you are able to see fine details such as the tiny bee on a flower in The Three Graces (Las Tres Gracias), delicate tears on the faces of the figures in The Descent from the Cross (El Descendimiento ) and complex figures in The Garden of Earthly Delights (El Jardin de las Delicias)

See the Prado website for more information. You don't have Google Earth? Well, take a look at the Prado in (less) high resolution at Google Maps. And there is still more to come. They claim that after a initial phase every day a new image will appear. If you are interested in this kind of image technology, you should check out Microsoft's SeaDragon/Photosynth too. In some way it represents a much more exciting and innovative approach to image visualisation. A good starting point is a short speech at Ted by Blaise Aguera y Arcas.

The fine Open Source Collection Management Software known as OpenCollection until now has renamed to CollectiveAccess. As they say the renaming was caused by a dispute with a former project partner:

However, a former institutional project partner believes that the name "OpenCollection" itself (and only the name - not the software) is not free. They believe that they have some ownership interest in the name which competes with the Project’s ownership interest. After some consideration we have concluded that, while we clearly own the name, we would prefer to put our energy into continuing development of useful software tools for the community rather than waste resources debating the status of a label.

Collective Access is an Open Source Software based on PHP/mySQL and is developed by a company called whirl-i-gig. It's the only Collection Management System available open source that fits professional needs (as far as I now). It is very easy to install and to administer, but there is also professional (paid) support if you need one.