I don't know if this is cart-before-horse, but I'll mention it because it's the issue that raises its head in many (most?) scenarios I can think of: the problem of the data being available in one place. I think for what Mia's mentioning, which I assume would mean searching across the records of a fair few institutions, this is definately an issue (one which was touched on in the previous thread).
But if I get Dan's question correctly, it's not only about what museums can offer as APIs, but what we'd find useful to consume, and there are a fair few data sources that I'd like that could come from single sources quite easily. Term lists and thesauri, bibliographies (e.g. BIAB), places of interest (current and historical), historic maps, Sites and Monuments Record. Some of the data are already open (and might be scraped, where that's ethical) but they're often not terribly useful till you can programme against them. There'll be times, though, when an API as such is over the top. I recently did some work one roman pottery fabrics and hooked in the thing I'm making to Paul Tyers' site, which mercifully was very logically organised and made life easy. An API would not have been worthwhile in this case, expecially given the tiny number of people that would use a small set of data, and it was simply useful that he has a transparent and predictable URL form for his pages. Sometimes this is enough. There's also the possibility of using Google Spreadsheets, which have their own API, to hold just this sort of flat data (as the Guardian's just done).
Dan's question implies not just data but services, too. There are plenty that would be useful, to add to the metadata enrichment of OpenCalais and Hakia, the geo lookup services of nearby.co.uk and Yahoo!, the identity/logon stuff the openID facilitates etc. More pertinent metadata enrichment would be one - cultural heritage specific, and built on the authority records of many institutions, and my hope is that Europeana may take up the challenge here, but I really don't know if that will happen. I'd like to know where to go for historical map overlays e.g. 19th century street maps, for building map applications. And on the subject of location data, it would be rather nice to be able to query those old maps by the street and place names of the time (obviously this is fantasy). And a chronology web service: pass it a term ("bronze age") and an optional location ("northern Europe", "London", "UK") and receive a date or date range for that event or time span - and the reverse, too: pass in a date and location and receive relevant events and periods. This would be another tough nut to crack perfectly, I suppose, but "good enough" would be a start.
Sorry if these aren't terribly user-focussed but they'd do it for me!
Cheers, Jeremy
Jeremy Ottevanger
Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
Museum of London
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ridge, Mia
Sent: 10 March 2009 11:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] What APIs would benefit you?
I'd like to be able to link to other organisation's people and place authorities/information records so I could set up Wikipedia-style inline or sidebar-style 'related' links to help visitors browse across museum sites. Not every person we think is interesting is 'notable' enough for a Wikipedia entry, but across the UK we must have lots of records about the same people, events, places, etc.
Based on conversation with people in and out of the sector, a timeline generator would be useful - both an XML/whatever output, and an easy way of creating records.
I'm wondering if there's a way to phrase the question so it makes sense to the not-so-techy majority of the list? Perhaps 'what are the biggest problems you face in publishing non-collections data online'?
Even better, take it back to first principles and ask visitors, 'what's the coolest thing you've seen on other websites that you'd like to be able to do on a museum website'. Ok, totally out of scope, but user-focussed development is a nice idea.
cheers, Mia
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Dan
> Zambonini
> Sent: 10 March 2009 10:18
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: What APIs would benefit you?
>
> We've talked a bit about how APIs reduce development cost (which they
> certainly do, in my experience).
>
> My question to you all (especially museum/gallery developers) is: what
> public APIs would be useful for you, to reduce cost and speed-up
> timescales?
> I.e. apart from those that already exist, what would make sense to
fund
> (or
> develop) for the greater good? What do you spend your time building
> internally that would be better as a public web service?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dan
>
> --------------------------------------
> Dan Zambonini
> Box UK
> Internet Development and Consultancy
>
> t: +44 (0)292 022 8822
> f: +44 (0)292 022 8820
> e: [log in to unmask]
> w: www.boxuk.com
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