Dear John (and others),
Interesting. At Amber / Side Gallery we're just redeveloping our online / onsite digital access. Our collection (about 20,000 photographs, 100 films, 10,000 slides + texts and research footage) is a set of maybe 400 interconnected film and photographic narratives that make one coherent story, rooted in the documentation of NE England. We're looking at how we enable meaningful, contextualised explorations that reveal the nature of the work, the multiple connections (creators, documented lives, themes, locations, timescales, etc). It would be good to have a chat about what you're doing (and to hear from anybody else about things we should be looking at). I'm all in favour of not reinventing wheels!
Best wishes,
Graeme
On 13 Jul 2015, at 19:35, James Morley wrote:
> Hi John
>
> I'd echo the comments so far - as an experiment it's bold, interesting, and
> definitely different from the norm, which has to be a good thing!
>
> What I personally still can't get my head around as a user (but I suspect
> this isn't aimed at me!) is that there are absolutely no structured routes
> in - curated sets have been suggested, but I'd also like to have just a
> little more control over my journey of discovery (yeah, I know, not really
> the point!) for example of 'related' objects (or maybe the grid is related,
> I seem to get mixed results). And by related I don't just mean just mean
> through traditional metadata like text, dates etc, but also things like
> shape and colour. Perhaps high level thematic 'tags' would help, but I
> still find myself yearning for a search box and typing things that spring
> into my mind when I see something interesting and wonder what else there
> might be, especially if the results came back so richly displayed. After
> all, you do say "Hopefully providing a simple and compelling search
> experience".
>
> More specific points
>
> - if the items are related it would make sense to be able to skip from one
> item to the next and have a different set of items appear that relate to
> that newly selected one
> - I like the fact that you can share your collected discoveries via one
> link (e.g.
> http://collectionsdivetwmuseums.org.uk/share/55a401a47d3ca1b4410b4978) but
> that only reinforces the fact that personally I'd like to more consciously
> find related items to pull together (I think there's a closet curator in
> everyone!)
> - the images are all scaled to full width and have big impact. No
> complaints there, but I'd like a 'shrink' button that fits the image to the
> screen so I can see the full image if i can see lots has been cropped
>
> More than I meant to say, but it's really interesting and I look forward to
> seeing it evolve.
>
> Cheers, James
>
>
> ---
> James Morley
> Work: labs.europeana.eu / [log in to unmask]
> Personal: www.jamesmorley.net / @jamesinealing
> Also: www.whatsthatpicture.com / @PhotosOfThePast
>
> On 13 July 2015 at 14:36, Martin Bazley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi John
>> I really like the idea behind this approach. It establishes an open,
>> friendly tone and gets people right into the objects straight away, with
>> lovely full screen images and onward routes.
>>
>> Lovely the way you have the tags on the right hand side as well.
>>
>> Two suggestions:
>>
>> 1.(usability) make the whole of each panel clickable rather than just the
>> button at the bottom.
>>
>> 2.(sustaining and deepending engagement) offer a few small curated
>> collections of objects rather than a series of individual ones. And/or a
>> few narrative pieces based on small numbers of objects for people to follow
>> along. I imagine you were probably already intending to create 'layers'
>> above the online collection itself.
>>
>> It looks pretty good on an iPhone too.
>>
>> Best
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------
>> Martin Bazley
>> Digital heritage consultant
>> Martin Bazley & Associates
>> 15 Margin Drive
>> Wimbledon
>> SW19 5HA
>> 0780 3580 727
>> [log in to unmask]
>> www.martinbazley.com
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>> John Coburn
>> Sent: 13 July 2015 12:42
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: [MCG] Novel cross-collections interface
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I thought I'd share v1 of a new collections interface Tyne & Wear Archives
>> & Museums has been working on over the past year with Newcastle Uni and
>> Microsoft Research. It's been funded as part of Nesta's Digital R&D for the
>> Arts programme.
>>
>> It's intended to serve as a novel cross-collections interface encouraging
>> 'non-specialist' audiences to browse and stumble across
>> intriguing/surprising artefacts. Hopefully providing a simple and
>> compelling search experience.
>>
>> http://collectionsdivetwmuseums.org.uk
>> http://greatnorthmuseum.org.uk/collections/collections-search (via GNM:
>> Hancock, one of our museums)
>>
>> The system is designed to present collections in response to our current
>> interpretation of how you use it. Ie. How engaged you are with what you're
>> seeing. It currently exposes 32,000 records.
>>
>> It is not intended to replace traditional catalogue/text search (this
>> system is also being relaunched very soon). It should complement it and
>> provide a simple alternative for anyone without the skills or inclination
>> for doing this.
>>
>> We're still working on a software development kit. The plan is that any
>> museum/archive/etc who wants to use it for their collection can adopt it
>> relatively easily. I can share more as and when for anyone interested.
>>
>> Any comments/questions/bugs spotted, feel free email me away from the list!
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> John.
>>
>>
>>
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