Hi all,
Colleagues who were at this year's UK Museums on the Web conference might
remember that I started to explore how data about museum exhibitions might
be better opened up so that it can be distributed and re-used on the web in
interesting ways. I kicked this off by exploring the use of Freebase (
http://www.freebase.com/) as an open data repository (licensed under a
Creative Commons licence).
Since then, Freebase have decided that Exhibitions (
http://exhibitions.freebase.com/) are a good example of how the site can be
used, and have helped to fill up the database with 634 exhibitions (as of
right now). It's also currently featured on the homepage their site
(underneath the main image, to the left of 'Warriers').
I'm interested in how this data might be used. Some current examples created
by Freebase include 'Films relating to
exhibitions<http://www.freebase.com/view/base/exhibitions/views/films_related_to_exhibition_subjects>
'<http://www.freebase.com/view/base/exhibitions/views/films_related_to_exhibition_subjects>,
which links The Science of Aliens to E.T., and 'Investment banks that have
sponsored exhibitions<http://exhibitions.freebase.com/view/base/exhibitions/views/investment_banks_that_have_sponsored_exhibitions>',
which is pretty topical. The website makes it fairly easy to link semantic
data together, so doing queries like 'exhibitions relating to artists born
in Spain that were athiests' is perfectly possible.
Anyone can add their own exhibitions, although the interface takes a little
getting used to. There's also an API that you can use to get data in and
out. If you have any questions on using the service, I'd be happy to try and
help.
On a wider note, I think there's strong potential for a web service that
lets people discover exhibitions they might want to visit, based upon their
interests and social networks, and so I've been working up a project that
attempts to do just this! If you're interested, get in touch...
--
Frankie Roberto
Experience Designer, Rattle
0114 2706977
http://www.rattlecentral.com
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