collections online 2011 lawrence chiles (national maritime museum)

NationalMaritimeMuseumCollections Online 2011

• A more active, integrated website

• A more visual interface

• The data to underpin online and in-gallery services

• Improved the search across all collections

• More interpretive content - multimedia and links to external resources

• Incorporated user-generated content – tags, personal collections

• Access to more records – part or whole

• A bespoke open-source content management system

• Develop tools and policies to promote re-use of data and content

What we wanted to achieve

• Connect objects and records across our varied collection– Use inked data to enable connectivity between objects – Help develop the story and relationships across collections

• Give objects a growing online identity– A permanent/stable home based on Object IDs

• To be conversational– Let people use the data but then start/react to the conversation– If no one knows it’s there...

What we wanted to achieve

• Changed the criteria– From ‘Web ready’ to ‘Not for web use’– No images OK– 4 basic mandatory fields – ID, title, physical description and credit

• Mapped 3 separate collection types– Objects– Charts and Maps– Archive catalogue

• Work with what we have got– Data will never be perfect, improve as we go

What we did

• Offer different ways to the data– OAI-PMH (for aggregation into Culture Grid and onwards to

Europeana)– OpenSearch– XML

• Used the principles of linked to data to link out of collections online– AEON – Archival retrieval service through our Archive catalogue– Cabinet – For our print ordering service– WorldCat – Links to publications– Plans to work with Wikimedia commons to enhance authority records

(Vessels authority)

• Exposed both the SOLR API for ‘traditional’ searching and the SPARQL end-point for linked data– Promoted at Culture and History Hack days in London

What we did - extending in and out

• On-gallery experiences– Using Collections Online as a platform for other services – Digital

Compass (Compass Lounge), Ship Plan Viewer, Mobile Learning

• Promote a collaborative, conversational approach– ‘Help the NMM’ feature on all records

– Facilities for user to tagging, create collections, embed etc

– Promote use at Hack days

– Improve visibility of staff

• Continue to release and monitor– 1915 Crew lists

– Review what is popular to influence digitisation policies

– Further collaborations

Going forward

• What do you think is the museum sector’s ambition around resource discovery?

– Mixed! A growing conversation

• Why did you decide to expose your collections data as Linked Data at National Maritime?

– It seemed sensible

• What did that entail? What barriers did you face and how did you overcome them?

– Not that many, people understand the need to make things visible

• What benefits have you gained?– Yet to be discovered!

• In what ways does the new landscape of linked open data potentially change what is possible for the museums sector?

– Telling and exposing more stories

• How do you wish to go forward? What are your short- to medium-term plans?

– Release more data. Find collaborations

Questions to answer

Strong background

image tied to top homepage promotion and

featured collections

Most popular objects and

user created collections

Simplified navigation

Public asked to contribute

knowledge

Strong visual categories

Active browse functions

Visual search navigation

Actions to do more with results

– buy, share, view, tag, save

Larger images with multimedia

content

Core object data with connected

internal and external

information

Contextual links to internal and external

content

Public asked to contribute

knowledge

Shareable saved searches

Personalised collections

lchiles@nmm.ac.uk

@chilesl

Thanks