Linking objects and their stories: an API for exploring cultural heritage using formal concept analysis

In this paper, we describe a distributed systems and Web Services Architecture that supports a content management and collaborative tagging system for a Web-based cultural heritage site. The site uses Formal Concept Analysis to infer semantic associations between objects and drive the navigation of its collection, and we promote an extension of its capability by rendering such functionality via Web Services. The Web Services architecture supports a system called the Virtual Museum of the Pacific – a content and knowledge acquisition tool that permits the machine synthesis of formal concepts and provides a Rich Internet Application in which to display and navigate them. The Web Services also permit the extensible association of digital objects by inducing new attributes and relationships from museum meta-data, and allows for the ability for users and stakeholders to upload, annotate and attach rich media, YouTube or Vimeo links, and voice narratives to the objects. By rendering these capabilities as an open API, we encourage a connected and open approach to the sharing of cultural heritage and provide platform for further research and development – making our application well suited for mobile devices, Web-based mashups, and data exchange between collection databases.