VIRTUAL EXHIBITIONS FRAMEWORK: UTILISATION OF XML DATA PROCESSING FOR SHARING MUSEUM CONTENT OVER THE WEB

In this paper we will describe a prototype implementation of a framework for organising virtual exhibitions, which uses information provided by the collaborating museums in the form of Web services. The museum content published by the collaborating museums is organised in a homogeneous virtual exhibition space by an exhibition curator and is accessible from a single point of entry – the Virtual Exhibition site. The prototype assumes the content published is an extract of CIDOC-compliant museum database, which allows easy standardisation and further dissemination. The prototype system presented is built entirely using public domain stack of technologies for processing XML data in Java (J2SE, J2EE and additional XML and Web Services packages). It functions as an entirely server-side Web application executed by a Tomcat server connected to a backend database (one for each participating museum plus one for the exhibition itself). Furthermore, the paper will describe one further step in the direction of accomplishment of truly panEuropean collaboration for organisation of virtual exhibitions. Using a single XML schema for speciÞ cation of the common exhibition informa- tion and utilising contemporary information technologies for processing XML data over the Web, the approach adopted demonstrates how to add a new European dimension in the inter-museum collaboration and to achieve wider access to the rich European cultural heritage. The system will be demonstrated during the conference