Open Source Catalogue?

[Daniel Eckert]

Hi folks!  While many (if not all) of us on this forum maintain our own private inventory systems in addition to the books published by Nathan and Buxbaum -- I am curious whether a collaborative catalogue exists among this community.  I cannot imagine that I am the first to ask this question, but my searches so far have found no examples.

In particular, while I am delighted by the readily shared information on this forum, including examples in the past month by Larry Moffett and Scott Shier with photos and descriptions -- the forum can become a difficult format to quickly search and reference this information.

My thought here is -- separate from tracking one's personal collection -- a repository for cataloguing information about Nat Geo items that can outlive all of us, in a standard, portable format that is also not locked into a single company or technology.

The goal is not to replace the forum -- my hope is that it would enhance and complement the discussions that happen here on the forum.

The key advantages that I see to this include:

• Reduce risk of information becoming lost
• Fill in knowledge gaps left by previous sources
• Benefit from community contributions vs the limits of a single-author effort

The key concerns I see, and have plans to address, include:

• Ease of use
• Broad accessibility without special licenses or fees
• Ability to archive or move the data to a different system or hosting platform
• Ability to limit spam
• Accountability (who made what changes, when)
• Ability to revert changes when necessary

To be clear, I am not asking someone to create this for me.  If something like this does not exist already, I plan to take the initiative to create the system and begin populating it with information available to me.  However, before investing significant time in the concept, I want to check whether an effort like this is already underway.

If something like this already exists, I would prefer to contribute to that effort instead!

For any who would want to discuss specific ideas for how to implement this, I would be happy to discuss in a separate post -- but in this thread, I'd rather keep this one on the question at hand ("has this already been done?").

Thank you for your time and wisdom!

[Scott T. Shier]

I have a few comments, but I cannot reply right now, Daniel. Thanks for this query & post! I'll be back . . . 

[Daniel Eckert]

Thanks Scott!  Will be happy to hear any comments you are willing to share. 

Based on the lack of other replies to indicate any other existing resource like this, I'm currently thinking this is will be worth the time to put further effort into.

[Scott T. Shier]

You are right Daniel, it's a bit hard to search for old posts here. I delayed my reply because I was hunting for an old discussion thread I was a part of, back around 2008-2010. There were a couple of us discussing some kind of interactive, shared, and updatable data document to ID and collate an NG collection, whether NGM and/or map-supplements, etc. 

It kind of went nowhere, with no resolution or solution.

Then, sometime in the 2013-1015 timeframe there was another discussion w/ different folks, whereby we were discussing the idea of modeling after Edwin Buxbaum's guidebook(s) and creating a new fully updated overview of everything to bring product and activities of the Society into the 2000's (as opposed to the most recent "official" books being R. Nathan's c. 1982 book, and WE. Buxbaum's last revised edition, c. 1971)

The idea was various of us would tackle one topic or narrowly focused category of NG collecting and write the chapters individually, proofreading each other, and then "publish" and share a new co-authored book. Our consensus was that the Society's activities and publications & product had exploded so expansively that no single person could possibly cover (and specialize) in all of it.  

This also did not come to fruition; though we do contribute info. to this 'Corner, piecemeal. 

So to answer your question finally, there is no such thing as what you asked if it exited or was already started by anyone in collaboration. I honestly have no idea where to start. What did you have in mind when you said you would start on it . . . ? 

        ~ Scott S.

[Daniel Eckert]

This is great context -- thank you, Scott!

What you're describing tracks with patterns I have observed in other contexts outside of Nat Geo collecting.  My professional background includes various types of technology dating back to the early 2000s, so I've seen, contributed to, and personally led multiple "generations" of attempts around complex documentation by community groups, nonprofit orgs, small businesses, and corporations.  With widely varied levels of success and longevity.

By no means am I an expert -- this is just to say this isn't my first try at something like this, so I have some ideas based on what I've seen work and not work.

Firstly, what I've observed makes me think that the most important aspects of a project like this include, not in ranked order:

• Getting started -- even a small something is better than a big empty "what if"
• Specific, achievable scope -- for instance, this would only be an "encyclopedia" of information -- not like one of the many "personal library manager" apps (i.e. collectors can contribute their info to the encyclopedia, but it's not a system to inventory each collector's individual collection) -- and not a replacement for discussion that takes place here on the forum
• Reduce friction -- having a format/template that makes entering content easy and casual
• Flexible -- provide a means to enter any amount of information available even if not every bit
• Veracity -- while simply entering info is helpful (and should be allowed), allowing a way for an editor to provide photographs and/or citations to "prove" the info, allowing the audience to quickly understand how reliable any particular factoid might be

The approach I have in mind currently is something like a wiki.  A system that allows for collaborative editing, traceability for edits, ability to revert bad edits, and a templating system that provides for consistency of formats to allow most editors to focus on content rather than style.

Most importantly, the concept I have hinges on openness as a living document, different from the point-in-time approaches by previous books -- as well as the ability to not sit entirely on the shoulders of one person or another.

Finally, the concept of portability.  It should be easy to download, backup, and move the content from one hosting provider to another using standards that are not limited to one vendor/product.  With previous books, the content can live forever on a shelf.  With digital systems, longevity requires a bit more care to achieve.

Coming back to one of my earlier remarks, one of the most important things is simply to get started.  I will setup a prototype soon and bring that back to this forum.  I'll welcome support from anyone who wants to help, of course!

[Scott T. Shier]

Daniel -- 

I'd be happy to help (if I can, or to what extent I'm not sure at this moment) -- or contribute feedback or any information I can. 

I agree about the longevity and transferability aspects. Those are a primary concern and objective. 

Thank you for bringing this to this Collector's Corner. I hope something of value and usability to everyone could come if it. Heretofore, we've all been creating & using our own individual Word, Excel, and Access files to "manage" our collections; there's much overlap and duplication of effort and styles (eg, formatting Vs. content, as you said.)

~ Scott 

[Dale]

Hi Daniel

This is my own spreadsheet for my own collection. I'd be happy to convert it to a general NGS catalogue that anyone can use and update, but not sure how to best do that. Who would manage the updates and decide what was a legitimate change/update and what was not? 

Regards

Dale

[Dale]

Hi Again Daniel

Just read your most recent post. If you can adapt my spreadsheet or other content to what you envision, that would be great!  Let me know how I can help.

Dale

[Daniel Eckert]

Thank you, will do!  I'm close to having a "prototype" ready to share for feedback.  Hope to have an update to share later this week or this weekend.

Dan

[Daniel Eckert]

Just took a look -- wow, that's an extensive spreadsheet.  Well done!  Thank you for sharing.

[Richard Kennedy]

Hi Daniel,

I use Bookpedia and DVDpedia to catalog my collection. I currently have over 3,500 publications cataloged along with 1,100 videos. It can hold a great deal of data about each item along with a photograph. I have attached a screen capture giving an example of this. It also allows export to HTML and I have room on my personal website to host these.

[Dale]

Hi Daniel

I understand that you have expertise in how such an online catalog might best be structured and don't wish to undermine that, but out of curiousity I asked Chat-GPT, hoping this might help: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zAQKuSroMqLjg5RQLxK5nqwadr7Wzw9...

Cheers

Dale

[Daniel Eckert]

Thanks, Dale! Seems like we arrived at a similar place. I am exploring tradeoffs between a couple of approaches. Currently I have a prototype running with Omeka S and another nearly running with Semantic Media Wiki. In each case, the focus is on a blend of open standards, structured data, templating, and ease of use. The last element seems to be the most significant factor to consider between these approaches.

Currently I'm leaning toward SMW but will be tinkering with it a bit more today before bring it back to the Corner. Omeka S seems like an excellent choice for enforcing rigid adherence to structured data, but is very inflexible from a community perspective. In Omeka S, there is an expectation for a "librarian" to establish each resource template and regular users have to stay strictly within it. The templates are somewhat time consuming to plan, and although the result is very well structured data, I am concerned that the level of effort necessary to understand the system exceeds what would be sustainable in a community/hobbyist setting.

By comparison, SMW seems to provides more flexibility and ease of use for casual edits, as well as more flexibility in how to add new resource types -- but that also means tradeoffs in community practice (i.e. how we think about and use the tools).

More to come.