One Butterfly

One Buterfly - Pan Institutional Cross Catalog Search

The One Butterfly project is the name I am using to brand my Individual Study. An Individual Study at the School of Information is an independent study that allows a student to investigate an advanced topic for credit.

Dr. Gary Geisler is serving as my faculty adviser for this semester of the One Butterfly project. The purpose of this indivdual study is to investigate the interface design of a pan-institutional catalog of cultural objects.

The Cross Catalog Searching Center (CCS) is an endeavor of Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. The CCS permits the search of descriptive records of dozens of Smithsonian units. The interface has the potential to connect related resources across a large de-centralized institution.

Currently, the Smithsonian's central Information Office is meeting with units to devise a metadata scheme to relate the millions of heterogeneous records. This is in addition to the 1.7 million records now in the catalog servicing the CCS. The potential and complexity of the project is immense.

The One Butterfly project grew out of my personal interest in the arts. Though institutions are building and refining their web presence they've yet to overcome the physical and technological barriers that seperate the collections from the public. Right now, the best way to take in the wealth of interaction that cultural objects provide is to visit a museum but what if you can't visit it?

While attending college in Oklahoma I began to think "what if those physical and technological barriers were reduced to allow larger audiences to connect with the arts and culture? -- single museum website is too narrow of a view into the arts, a Google Image Search is too broad, and a subscription database like ARTStor to restrictive to allow the average American to really connect with the arts."

The Smithsonian Institution has collection of the size and quality to intrigue the American public. But even with the massive digitization efforts the Smithosonian lacks the enviroment necessary to connect the public with the Smithsonian as a whole. The purpose of this project is to develop three interface designs for Smithsonian's Cross Catalog Search Center. The Smithsonian has the essential building blocks for building a bridge for people to interact with media across physical and digital repositories. To learn more about the Smithsonian's Cross Catalog Search Center refer the Wiki page.