Archäologie

TV ARCHAEOLOGIST Julian Richards is leading a course in Blandford that promises to open up the world of archaeology to enthusiasts.

Gordie King stands head bowed, gazing down at a dark and dusty opening into wartime history... his eyes filling with tears.

Archaeologists in Guatemala show off Mayan artefacts salvaged from the ruins of an ancient ceremonial site located in the depths of Lake Atitlan.

We’ve released the files [218,822 object records, 40,596 media records and 173 event records] as a lightweight experiment – we’d like to understand whether, and if so, how, people would use our data. We’d also like to explore the benefits for the museum and for programmers using our data – your feedback will inform decisions about future investment in more structured data as well as helping shape our understanding of the requirements of those users. The files are in CSV format – because it’s a really simple format, viewable in a text editor, we hope that it will be usable by most people.

A few people have commented on the licence (Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike, CC BY-NC-SA) and on the format
(CSV).  As tomorrow is my last day, I can’t really speak for the museum
but the intention is to learn from how people use the data – the things
they make, the barriers they face, etc – and iterate (as resources
allow) until we get to an optimal solution (or solutions). So please get in touch
if you’ve got requests or think you can help clear up some of the
issues these kinds of projects face, because there’s a good chance
you’ll help make a difference.



The licence is a pragmatic solution – it’s clarification of existing
terms rather than a change to our terms, because this avoided a need for
legal advice, policy review, etc, that would have added several months
to the process.



And yes, I know CSV is quick and dirty, but it’s effective. The
museum sector is still working out how to match the resources available
with the needs of mash-up type developers who work best with JSON and
those who are aiming for linked open data; my hope is that your feedback
on this will help museums figure out how to support people using open
data in various forms. A simple solution like this also means it’s easy
for the museum to re-run the export to update the data as time goes on,
and that anyone, geek or not, can open the files without being startled
by angle brackets and acronyms. Also, did I mention it was quick?