opening our collections data to the public Collections Online opening our collections data to the public

Collections Data - Current situation We have multiple collections databases across Amgueddfa Cymru. This collections data is only available internally to curatorial staff. It is not possible to search across collections data. Collections data for use on our website has to be manually extracted which is labour intensive, time consuming and creates static catalogues of ‘dead’ data. Due to these problems only a very small percentage of our collections data has been made available on-line.

Solution – aggregation of collections data via ‘Middleware’ Take records from multiple collections databases and images from the Digital Asset Library. Develop customised, automated extraction routines to take data from the ‘back office’ databases overnight. Data can be fed into the web site and can also be combined with information generated by the public. Aggregated data and images are stored centrally and can be globally searched and re-purposed.

At the same time we were exploring a middleware solution we were also installing, developing and testing a digital asset management system called iBase Trinity. This has been developed alongside the CIIM extraction allowing us to integrate objects records and associated images.

Extracting the data The middleware extracts data and images overnight from the back end systems. This data is then indexed during the day. Newly created records are added to the CIIM and existing records are checked for changes. If an existing record hasn’t changed it is discarded, but if it has changed the old record is overwritten with the new information. This allows us to have as close as possible a live web database, showing new records or changes to existing records within days of the record being created or updated on the back office systems. I can use this CIIM interface to check on overnight progress with the extraction and to make sure the media files are uploading and linking to their associated records.

Invalid records Within the CIIM we have validation rules in place to make sure that only records that meet the necessary criteria will be available for publication. For example, if an object record doesn’t have a unique accession number or a valid location it won’t be validated.

JSON – the code behind the data All of the records, including the metadata associated with the images, is converted into standardised JSON documents. The public facing Elasticsearch has been installed on our new web server and this enables us to use the data stored in the CIIM to create Collections Online.

Making the data available on the web site This is the front page of the beta version of Collections Online. We will improve this and integrate it more fully into the web site when we progress from the beta phase in March. We are working together to create a number of templates that will allow us to best display discipline specific records.

Online searching This is the results of a search for the term “Treasure” and “records with images”. These results can be viewed as a grid view (with images), as above or as a list view as shown on the next slide.

Online searching This is the results of a search for the term “chisel”. It returned 603 results from across departments and these can be further filtered with the tags shown on the right.

Online searching Clicking on an individual record pulls up additional information – descriptions, locality information, measurements, material, location within the Museum. Where grid references are available within a record a small map will also appear showing the find spot.

Online searching For the first time ever we can search across disciplines and show the full diversity of the collections – from paintings, to bronze age antler picks; from medals struck to commemorate the miner’s strike to a medieval silver coin hoard.

Things to consider for the future In future all of the information added to our databases will be available to the public so we need to start entering descriptions with the public in mind. We can use content generated for galleries, exhibitions and publications to help enhance our records. We can use google analytics to see what people are searching for and focus our attention on these areas of the collection. We need to increase the number of images available and explore ways of adding more photographs for large assemblages of material. Phase Two will concentrate on improving searching – making it easier to explore our collections. We will also continue to make more fields available to view online. Inscriptions and historical associations are next on our list. We have started to look at adding natural science records to the CIIM.