After posting some stuff the the microformats-discuss mailing list I had a fascinating off-list reply from Keith Alexander, suggesting that I look into eRDF (embeddable RDF) as an alternative to a new microformat (and not only because new ones seem never to get anywhere these days, and perhaps rightly so). The links he pointed at have really whetted my appetite. There are a couple of extra complications, at least from the point of view of keeping authoring as simple as possible (the need for link tags, for one), but it sorts out some of my concerns immediately and opens the "format" up to existing eRDF parsers. Perhaps if we were to come up with some recommended schemas and element sets for museum objects we could reach some sort of stability and with a little adaptation even the work I've already done on the Gathery might not be wasted, but as Keith pointed out, the data would also be available to Piggy Bank and more. Hmm, definitely one to pursue and I'm glad I exposed myself on the list, even if it does mean I drop the µƒ idea altogether.
More on eRDF: http://www.getsemantic.com/wiki/ERDF
About Me
- Jeremy
- Web person at the Imperial War Museum, just completed PhD about digital sustainability in museums (the original motivation for this blog was as my research diary). Posting occasionally, and usually museum tech stuff but prone to stray. I welcome comments if you want to take anything further. These are my opinions and should not be attributed to my employer or anyone else (unless they thought of them too). Twitter: @jottevanger
