hacking arts & culture by linda ellis

Black Country Museums Hack Day

Linda EllisWolverhampton Arts + Heritage

Black Country Collections OnlineMLA funded project 2011 - 12

Black Country History website

Black Country History website

• 8 partners; 4 museum services, 4 archives• As of May 2011 contains 146,000+ records – 28,000+ records with images– 24,000+ museum records

• MySQL based repository contains XML and provides OAI target

• SOLR based indexing, qualified DC, matches CultureGrid schema

• Rate limited API layer over SOLR

Data fed into Culture Grid

Why a Hack Day?

• To meet local developers• To find out developers views on our data and

our project• To generate new ideas• To start to create new uses of our data

Fun• Attendees had to make their own badge• Brought along some handling objects• Small prizes – Easter egg for the best

badge, Amazon vouchers for the best hack• Lunch, sweets and drinks provided

But also hard work

Hacks• 5 hacks created on the day: • Go Fish – type in a keyword > 9 random images,

user creates a story• Pairs game – 20 images, user has to find the

pairs• Around here – mobile app that displays images

based on users location and location data associated with an image

• Connections – 16 images, user has to identify sets of images and the link

• Black Country fashion – user selects a hat, top, skirt / trousers and shoes to make up an outfit

Go Fish

Black Country Fashion

Lessons learnt

• Crucial:– Good, reliable Wi-Fi– Venue– Lunch

• Keep it informal• Doesn’t have to be a whole weekend • Great for generating new ideas• Technical support• It’s fun!

What next?

• Would like to take 2 or 3 of the hacks and progress to finished resources

• Would like to hold more hack days in the Midlands to generate:– interest in our data and our collections – new ideas for digital resources that could be built

• BUT we don’t have the funding to do this at the moment

Get in touch• Linda Ellis– linda.ellis@wolverhampton.gov.uk– Twitter: @wagwebteam

• Black Country Museums– Twitter: @BCMusuems– Black Country History website:

http://blackcountryhistory.org