In message
<[log in to unmask]>, Ridge
Mia <[log in to unmask]> writes
>Mike Ellis wrote:
>
>> Have museums won the open data argument with their stakeholders? (and
>I
>> guess the shadowy question behind that is "if not, why not?")
>>
>> Be interesting to hear of your experiences / thoughts..
>
>I suspect that the wider case for museums publishing open data - the
>case that 'people will use it *and* the museum will benefit' still
>hasn't been proven, or proven in the right ways and to the right people.
>I'm even wondering whether 'publishing open data is the right thing to
>do' is axiomatic among museum technologists.
In my view, people will only start using museum information in a
measurable way when it is available either as a single, massive, set of
consistent data (a "useful silo") or in the form of data which can link
out to, and mesh with, non-museum data.
Culture Grid and Europeana are examples of the first approach, and the
forthcoming Hack Day on 3 December will give us more of a sense of how
effectively Culture Grid is fulfilling that requirement.
I think the second approach - which requires you to turn much of your
stringy data into URLs and implement a Linked Data strategy - makes more
sense for a single institution, since users can then get value from the
relationship between the museum's data and the rest of the world's data.
However, I don't see more than a handful of pioneer museums even
attempting to follow this route.
So one might ask, even where museums think they are publishing open
data, whether they are doing so in a manner which will make any
difference to the public they are trying to serve.
Richard
--
Richard Light
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