1. IAML Congress Moscow, 2010 The musicSpace project: orchestrating musicological metadata. http://musicspace.mspace.fm David Bretherton, Daniel Alexander Smith, mc schraefel (PI), Richard Polfreman, Mark Everist, Jeanice Brooks, and Joe Lambert.

2. Contents 1.Motivation 2.Solutions 3.Evaluation 4.Future Work 2

3. 1. Motivation (the problem we are addressing) 3

4. 4 Centuries of material...

5. 5... is now increasingly digitised

6. Yet data is often siloed. 6

7. Geographical dispersal has been replaced by a virtual dispersal on the web. Data is now segregated into countless online repositories by: – Media type (text, image, audio, video) – Date of creation/publication – Subject 7

8. Yet data is often siloed. Geographical dispersal has been replaced by a virtual dispersal on the web. Data is now segregated into countless online repositories by: – Language – Copyright holder – Ad hoc/insecure nature of project funding 8

9. Yet data is often siloed. Interoperability has generally not been given a high enough priority. 9

10. Using current online data resources presents barriers at all stages of the research process: 10 It is hard to speculatively browse around a subject area. Real-world multipart queries are effectively intractable, for example...

11. 11 (i) What recording of works by Cage exist, (ii) which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and (iii) what else by Cage have they recorded? A UK researcher would use British Library Sound Archive, Copac and Naxos.

12. 12 (i) What recording of works by Cage exist, (ii) which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and (iii) what else by Cage have they recorded? i.Search for recordings where the composer is Cage in: a)British Library Sound Archive b)Copac c)Naxos Each requires a different search formulation. In some cases manual filtering of results is required.

13. 13 ii.Manually identify the performer(s) for each record – there is no way to extract this data automatically from your results using the existing interfaces. (i) What recording of works by Cage exist, (ii) which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and (iii) what else by Cage have they recorded?

14. 14 iii.Search for each performing artists other recordings of Cage: a)For Naxos, you can use their advanced search option to search for Cage in the Composer field AND a particular in the Performer field. (i) What recording of works by Cage exist, (ii) which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and (iii) what else by Cage have they recorded?

15. 15 iii.Search for each performing artists other recordings of Cage: b)But for the BLSA and Copac, while you can search for Cage and a particular performer, it is not easy to limit their roles. So (particularly Copac) results will include cases where Cage fulfils a role other than Composer, and where the particular performer fulfils a role other than Performer. Thus manual filtering is required. (i) What recording of works by Cage exist, (ii) which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and (iii) what else by Cage have they recorded?

16. 16 iii.Search for each performing artists other recordings of Cage: Finally: all of this information needs to be collated manually into repertoire lists. (i) What recording of works by Cage exist, (ii) which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and (iii) what else by Cage have they recorded?

17. 17 The barriers to tractability and their solutions Need to consult several sources … and metadata from one source cannot guide searches of another source. Insufficient granularity of data and/or search option. Multi-part queries have to be broken down and results collated manually. Pen and paper! Solutions: Integration Increase granularity Optimally interactive UI (mSpace)

18. 2. Solutions 18

19. Integration 19

20. 20 Integrate access, so that rather than using many portals...

21. 21... you can use just one.

22. 22 Our partners use a variety of data formats MARC-XML MODS-XML Custom MARC Source-specific XML Tables/CSV We import these as RDF Why RDF? 1.Standard format for the Semantic Web. 2.Its highly modular; i.We can add records and record fields without having to start from scratch. ii.RDF can be created using lots of different tools.

23. Granularity 23

24. 24 Metadata hierarchy We use a multi-level hierarchy based on metadata type. Person ComposerScribeAuthorPerformer etc. Crucially, our interface exposes this hierarchy so that both broad and narrow searching is possible.

25. 25 Adding/exposing granularity Where possible we add to/expose the granularity of the metadata. Person Immyns, John [scr]. (MARC relator codes) Scribe Immyns, John.

26. 26 Generating metadata: Grove works lists

27. 27 Our Tool for the Works Lists

28. User Interface 28

29. 29 musicSpace is a faceted browser

30. 30 Demonstration What recording of works by Cage exist, which performers have recorded a particular work by Cage, and what else by Cage have they recorded? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZkMxWlquI4&hd=1

31. 3. Evaluation 31

32. 32 Feedback from first phase of evaluation (May 2009): All the information showed up very quickly, and it was easy to find material. It was really good to have different kinds of material in the same place. I would recommend musicSpace for its ability to manipulate queries in order to get results that you wouldnt otherwise be able to get [without starting over]. I used musicSpace to explore how many operas have a character named Alceste. This information simply isnt obtainable using other search interfaces – youd have to sort the information by hand.

33. Invitation to join the second phase of evaluation (ends September 2010). Sign up at http://musicspace.mspace.fmhttp://musicspace.mspace.fm Needs Firefox web browser (free download) Even a small amount of your time testing musicSpace is useful to us – especially if you fill in an evaluation form. This is experimental software: – only has subsets of our partners datasets; – e-science research project, not (yet) a commercial product. 33

34. 4. Future Work 34

35. 35 Possible works lists project with Grove MusicNet composer URI project Wrapping our interface around existing online collections

36. 36 MusicNet (JISC funded, July 2010 - June 2011) Aims: 1.Create stable URIs for all composers so that database builders and content producers can unambiguously identify composers. 2.Publish alignment data describing the composer name-forms used in our data partners catalogues, linking to partners records where possible. 3.Build a demonstration service (foaf?) to illustrate the benefits of the URIs. If there is sufficient community interest and support, we hope expand this work to include all music-related persons and musical works.

37. Please get in touch! David Bretherton: D.Bretherton@soton.ac.uk D.Bretherton@soton.ac.uk musicSpace: http://musicspace.mspace.fmhttp://musicspace.mspace.fm MusicNet: http://musicnet.mspace.fmhttp://musicnet.mspace.fm 37

38. 38 Thank you for listening! Acknowledgments Funders: AHRC (http://www.ahrc.ac.uk) EPSRC (http://www.epsrc.ac.uk) JISC (http://www.jisc.ac.uk)http://www.ahrc.ac.ukhttp://www.epsrc.ac.ukhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk Data partners: The British Library (http://www.bl.uk) The British Library Sound Archive (http://www.bl.uk/nsa) Cecilia (http://www.cecilia-uk.org) Copac (http://copac.ac.uk) Grove Music Online (OUP) (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com) Naxos Music Library (http://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com) RILM (http://www.rilm.org) RISM UK and Ireland (http://www.rism.org.uk)http://www.bl.uk/nsahttp://www.cecilia-uk.orghttp://copac.ac.ukhttp://www.oxfordmusiconline.comhttp://www.naxosmusiclibrary.comhttp://www.rilm.orghttp://www.rism.org.uk