"Internet
trading communities and marketplaces with aggregated and customized catalogs,
intermediary services such as auctions and reverse auctions, and information
brokerage and syndication networks
are all examples of Internet business models that combine or interconnect
offerings or services from multiple businesses. The explosive and massively
uncoordinated innovation in Internet technology and business models makes it an
exciting time." This Statement from one of the world's leading
organization working towards an interoperable framework in the world of
e-commerce applies also to the field of Cultural Heritage. A wide range of
EU-funded projects has delivered exciting results in the field of digitisation
of 'cultural goods' as well as in the development of interoperable systems
providing access to distributed and heterogeneous public catalogues residing in
museums, libraries, archives, and galleries or similar organisations. But the
concept of a 'European Digital Library' cannot be only based on a technical
framework enabling access to digital goods - there is also a need to introduce
new ways of cooperation between different stakeholders ('Cultural Organisations',
Industries, Administrations, etc) as well as to 'reengineer' traditional
business processes in the light of globalisation and world wide markets. The
main activities within a 'support environment for i(nternet)
markets' comprise: Content
Engineering, Platform Engineering,
and Enterprise Engineering. The REGNET-Project targets to all three areas: Content
Engineering (content management and integration) is a cooperative task of
experts in the different domains (libraries, museums, archives, etc) and
information specialists from the IT and media industry, Platform Engineering
(network management, operations & service management) is based on available
standards and methods and executed by integrators and IT-specialists, and Enterprise
Engineering (Business Process Engineering, Organisational Changes) is a
collaborative work of all addressed stakeholders in the project.
The
objectives of REGNET are:
 |
Development
of a service infrastructure which
enables business to business (B2B) transactions as well as business to
consumer (B2C) transactions, |
|
Development
and use of existing - locally held - electronic
catalogues (OPACS: Online Public Access Catalogues) referring to
cultural & scientific objects contained in libraries, museums, archives,
and galleries, as well as to goods and services. |
|
Integration
of a distributed search and retrieval
system to achieve a 'virtual union' catalogue of all OPACS and product/service
catalogues held locally , |
|
Definition
of Information Products and Services
including necessary 'supply chains' and the connected business processes and
functions to deliver digital and physical goods, |
|
Development
of a legal framework necessary
for all business transaction on the B2B and B2C level (containing payment
features, copyright systems, authentication control, etc), |
|
Integration
and test of
existing components, standards, and methods in the field of distributed
search and retrieval and e-commerce, |
|
Access
to the REGNET-WEB services via wireless
application protocol (WAP) using mobile phones, |
|
Run
a trial service (demonstration
phase) which should be followed by a regular service. |
The technical objectives of REGNET are:
|
Development
of the ‘REGNET building blocks’ which are necessary to build up an
appropriate infrastructure to access to catalogues (containing cultural
& scientific data, product & service descriptions, etc) in the
Cultural Heritage domain. |
|
Access to the ‘REGNET System’ via wired communication lines as well as via the wireless application protocol (WAP). |
The building blocks of the REGNET-System consist of:
|
REGNET – Portal (access to remote data entry, distributed search, e-business) |
|
REGNET – Cultural Heritage Data Management (search over distributed meta data repositories connected to stores containing digital content) |
|
REGNET – eBusiness Data Management (e-commerce system allowing access to distributed product/service catalogues) |
|
REGNET – Ontology (Metadata) Subsystem (containing the specifications of all metadata needed in the Cultural Heritage domain as well as in the e-business domain; this subsystem also stores specifications of workflows and process related metadata) |
|
REGNET – Electronic Publishing Subsystem (allowing the production of personalised digital products based on standardised meta data and workflows) |