{"id":283,"date":"2016-01-19T02:16:30","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T10:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/?p=283"},"modified":"2016-01-26T00:51:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T08:51:56","slug":"open-cultural-data-and-how-were-not-using-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/2016\/01\/19\/open-cultural-data-and-how-were-not-using-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 3: Open Cultural Data and How We’re Not Using It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mia Ridge\u2019s article about Cultural Data in museums, and more importantly, the existence of open cultural data<\/em> brings an interesting new commentary to the history behind many web sources we have today. The author breaks down the term \u2018open cultural data\u2019 to us step by step, as well as explaining to us what \u2018linked data\u2019 is. Essentially, open cultural data is data from cultural institutions that is made available for use in a machine-readable format under an open license. This means that it could simply be a PDF we have to read for a class. Linked data, on the other hand, is similar to open cultural data, but requires specific technical protocols to support connections in the \u2018web of data.\u2019<\/p>\n

I related this article to my personal experiences with museums, namely the EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum in Seattle. Ridge states in her article that journalism ad politics were key drivers for the movement toward open data in the early to mid-2000s. However, it is quite interesting that museums followed journalism and politics into the era of open data in order to do a public service \u2013 share their knowledge of culture and history with the world.<\/p>\n

The EMP museum website is no different. It is a beautifully designed website that provides access to information for all site visitors about the various exhibitions that the museum has. But aside from just logistical information, it also has historical and cultural commentary about the implications that certain exhibits had on the world. Unfortunately, these information pages, along with those about the programs and education that the EMP museum has, are rarely visited.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

Ridge, in her article, states that though there are many API libraries, galleries and archives, not every data set gets a lot of use. This is for a myriad of reasons: confusing\/incompatible licenses, poor or inconsistent record quality within datasets, lack of images\/interesting descriptions and undocumented\/ambiguous vocabulary.<\/p>\n

The EMP museum website tries to mitigate these reasons with aesthetically pleasing and modern design and easy-to-use layout. It goes to show that museums really are putting their best foot forward in creating an environment where learning is encouraged and welcomed\u2014it\u2019s not just a matter of whether or not the public will decide to make use of the resources available to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mia Ridge\u2019s article about Cultural Data in museums, and more importantly, the existence of open cultural data brings an interesting new commentary to the history behind many web sources we … Continue reading “Week 3: Open Cultural Data and How We’re Not Using It”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}