Archive for the 'Web Technology' Category

lamusediffuse - Libya and the social web

I was recently sent information about a project called “lamusediffuse“, an interesting project which aims to increase global awareness of Libyan museums and their collections via the web.

lamusediffuse proposes the use of Social Web tools for the inclusion of not-dominant cultural expressions in the scopes of culture diffusion on the Internet. Accordingly with this objective, the project “Museums in Libya” is focused on two starting facts, the first is the lack of information about Libyan museums available in the website of the International Council of African Museums (AFRICOM) and the second is the apparent lack of museum websites in this country.

Their approach seems pretty much spot on to me. Set up and carefully tend Flickr and del.icio.us accounts, blog (about the phenomenon of interacting with museums using the social web), have a wiki, publish presentations on Slideshare.

I hope that this approach works well for them - it will be an interesting experiment to see if they can lift their museums from relative obscurity. I’ll certainly try and keep up with their project - it’s exactly the kind of approach that I evangelise about.

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Historyscape: new heritage mashup

Alun Salt from ClioAudio has created a new service called Historyscape, which is an RSS feed that grabs user-submitted websites from Netscape which have been tagged with “Ancient”, “Ancient History”, “Archaeology” and “History”. The feed is ordered by the number of votes each item has received.

You can subscribe to Historyscape via this RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Historyscape

Alun is using Yahoo Pipes and Feedburner to create the service. Details about how he did it are also available.

This is a great example of why it is important for heritage organisations to make their data available via web services - you can get people doing amazing things with your data. The possibilities would be endless.

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Museum of London Online

The Museum of London have been doing some great stuff with their website recently, including an upcoming events RSS feed, and the Google Maps powered Map My London where you can record your own memories in London, and where they are of.

Mia has also pointed out that there is now a Museum of London Flickr group as the museum now permits photography. It’s great to see this happening - museums opening up, and encouraging interaction. The Museum’s ‘official’ Flickr account (MoL_Learning - “Molly“) is also well worth a look.

Latest 2 events at the Museum of London (live from their RSS feed):

    Jack the Ripper, the 21st century investigation
    A retired police murder squad detective, Trevor Marriott,discusses his lengthy investigation into the case of Jack the Ripper, and reveals evidence never previously published.Wilberforce Society Chairman Bill Beadle will be giving a talk on his forthcoming book, 'The Execution of Jack the Ripper' due for publication next Spring. Frogg Moody will be promoting his new book charting the murder in 1908 of Edwin Haskell (due for publication in late September 2008), and co-written with author Bruce Purvis. This unsolved murder was investigated by Chief Inspector Dew two years before the Crippen case and contains lots of previously unpublished reports by Inspector Dew. There will also be a questions & answer session at the end of this afternoon's presentation In association with the Whitechapel Society<p>Date: 06 September 2008. <br />Times: 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/372715058" height="1" width="1"/>

    Pirate puppetmaking
    Enjoy stories of adventure from the book 'Captain Abdul's Pirate School', then make your own puppet of your favourite character to take home.<p>Date: 06 September 2008. <br />Times: 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/372707747" height="1" width="1"/>

    Sailor's 1000 stories
    Put on your sailor hat and join the museum staff to enjoy and act out a story of naughtiness and adventures in Captain Abdul's Pirate School by Colin McNaughton. <p>Date: 06 September 2008. <br />Times: 12:30; 13:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/372649161" height="1" width="1"/>

    The Great Fire Anniversary Walk
    In 1666 most of the medieval City was destroyed by one of the most catastrophic events in London's history. See the house of the King's baker in Pudding Lane where the fire started during the early hours of September 2nd, follow the route of its spread and meet the heroes and villains of three days of mayhem: Samuel Pepys who left us the best records in his diaries; Sir Christopher Wren who rebuilt the ancient churches and St Paul's Cathedral; and the Lord Mayor who took to his bed. The walk finishes at Pye Corner where the fire was extinguished. You are then free to go on to the Museum of London for a look at the London's Burning exhibition.<p>Date: 06 September 2008. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/145492591" height="1" width="1"/>

    Make a Roman Temple
    Become a Roman builder and re-create the Temple of Mithras. This event is aimed at children ages 3-6 years old and their carers.<p>Date: 07 September 2008. <br />Times: 13:00; 14:00; 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/373394496" height="1" width="1"/>

    Story time
    Join the Museum's hosts to discover stories from and about London. You could discover whether William Night became a Knight, if sparrow Samuel could return all the lost items he's found or solve the clues in our Roman game. To find out story dates call the booking office.<p>Date: 07 September 2008. <br />Times: 11:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/373345723" height="1" width="1"/>

    Babies and carers group
    Come and join our gentle drop-in session for babies aged 6-18 months and their carers. Held in our Mudlarks gallery the session includes soft play, rhyme time and an opportunity to meet others in a relaxed setting.<p>Date: 08 September 2008. <br />Times: 13:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/369903353" height="1" width="1"/>

    Toddler's and Carer's group
    Come to our weekly session for children aged 12 months to 5 years and their carers. The session involves soft play, rhyme time, play materials and refreshments. Please note that places are limited and booking is required.<p>Date: 08 September 2008. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/155551565" height="1" width="1"/>

    Amphitheatre visits
    A chance to see the excavated remains of London's only Roman amphitheatre preserved beneath the Guildhall Yard. Ticket includes a guided tour with Roman Curator, Jenny Hall and entrance to the Guildhall Art Gallery.<p>Date: 09 September 2008. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/149209155" height="1" width="1"/>

    Recent acquisitions
    Come and find out how our collections are being developed and what objects are being acquired to support the redevelopment of our modern galleries, which will reopen in 2010.<p>Date: 10 September 2008. <br />Times: 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/156438327" height="1" width="1"/>

    Toddler's and Carer's Group
    Come along and see our toddler's and carer's group! Have fun playing, singing and taking part in art activities every week! For those aged 12 months to 5 years and their carers.<p>Date: 10 September 2008. <br />Times: 15:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/251316170" height="1" width="1"/>

    Alcohol and Social Morality
    Dr Kate Bradley from the University of Kent looks at the dreadful effects of alcohol on the streets of Victorian London, and the efforts of reformers to promote temperance<p>Date: 11 September 2008. <br />Times: 13:10<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/377070418" height="1" width="1"/>

    Under 5's Storytime
    Come and listen to a story in one of our galleries and join in with a rhyme or two! A short session led by one of the Museum's team in a gallery location. <p>Date: 11 September 2008. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/207028076" height="1" width="1"/>

    Jack the Ripper and popular culture
    This day conference chaired by Professor Clive Bloom will explore the reasons why Jack the Ripper has exercised such a strong and lasting hold on the popular imagination, inspiring hundreds of books, films, plays and graphic novels. Speakers include Sir Christopher Frayling, showing his 1988 BBC documentary, Alexandra Warwick, Martin Willis and Clive Bloom.<p>Date: 13 September 2008. <br />Times: 10:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/378811562" height="1" width="1"/>

    The Pocahontas story
    In December 1606, a group of English settlers left London for the New World. Captain John Smith sailed with the settlers and in a fascinating account of his experiences claimed that Princess Pocahontas saved him from execution.Find out the real story.<p>Date: 13 September 2008. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30; 15:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/378867900" height="1" width="1"/>

    Built in stone
    Scary gargoyles and beautiful statues are some of the art of the stonemasons who built beautiful London buildings. Meet a stonemason and discover some secrets of the trade and see if you've got what it takes to carve in stone.<p>Date: 14 September 2008. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/379592513" height="1" width="1"/>

    Story time
    Join the Museum's hosts to discover stories from and about London. You could discover whether William Night became a Knight, if sparrow Samuel could return all the lost items he's found or solve the clues in our Roman game. To find out story dates call the booking office.<p>Date: 14 September 2008. <br />Times: 11:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/373345723" height="1" width="1"/>

    Babies and carers group
    Come and join our gentle drop-in session for babies aged 6-18 months and their carers. Held in our Mudlarks gallery the session includes soft play, rhyme time and an opportunity to meet others in a relaxed setting.<p>Date: 15 September 2008. <br />Times: 13:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/369903353" height="1" width="1"/>

    Musical Mondays
    Come along and express yourself through music. Special monthly session as part of our Toddler's and Carer's Group. For those aged 12 months to 5 years and their carers. Please note that places are limited and booking is required.<p>Date: 15 September 2008. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/251316169" height="1" width="1"/>

    Toddler's and Carer's group
    Come to our weekly session for children aged 12 months to 5 years and their carers. The session involves soft play, rhyme time, play materials and refreshments. Please note that places are limited and booking is required.<p>Date: 15 September 2008. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/155551565" height="1" width="1"/>

    Roman fort gate
    In AD 200 Londinium (the Roman City of London) was surrounded by a huge wall with a fort in the north west corner. Come and see the remains of its west gate beneath the streets right next to this Museum.<p>Date: 16 September 2008. <br />Times: 11:00; 12:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/209839097" height="1" width="1"/>

    Toddler's and Carer's Group
    Come along and see our toddler's and carer's group! Have fun playing, singing and taking part in art activities every week! For those aged 12 months to 5 years and their carers.<p>Date: 17 September 2008. <br />Times: 15:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/251316170" height="1" width="1"/>

    Under 5's Storytime
    Come and listen to a story in one of our galleries and join in with a rhyme or two! A short session led by one of the Museum's team in a gallery location. <p>Date: 18 September 2008. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/207028076" height="1" width="1"/>

    Fashion diversity
    Mahogany Model Management & Untold presents Fashion Diversity at London Fashion Week to showcase new and established designers and models in an exclusive fashion show at the Museum of London. This latest addition to London's fashion calendar is a platform for training and showcasing new designers and models alongside more established names with inspirational collections, new faces and offering a pathway from college to the high street. Fashion Diversity is a collective of newly emerging models, designers and artists all encountering the same barriers when venturing into the wider world of high street design and fashion, often with no real platform to express themselves. Mahogany Model Management and Untold seeks to redress that balance. Fridays shows and the first one on Saturday will showcase both established and up-and-coming UK designers. The final show on Saturday afternoon showcases the work of 10 designers from schools and colleges across London. Their designs will be influenced by the costumes in the Museum's own stores from the 1960s and 1970s. Arrive in plenty of time for the best spot on the catwalk! This event is also in collaboration with the Friends of Fashion. <p>Date: 19 September 2008. <br />Times: 13:00; 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/384131440" height="1" width="1"/>

    Walk: From ruins to regeneration
    Join Cwti Green and discover where ancient ruins, medieval buildings and Georgian edifices rub up against brand spanking new structures in the city. This walk traces the history of the city from the Romans onwards through the different types of buildings that still survive and are being built, both sacred and secular, controversial and conventional, modern and venerable.<p>Date: 19 September 2008. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/384168336" height="1" width="1"/>

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Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

[UPDATE] John Battelle has posted an interview with Michael Wesch, who has agreed to answer questions in the blog’s comments section.

Tony Gill on the Museums Computer Group email list, pointed out a video that covers the major issues that come under the ‘Web 2.0′ umbrella. It puts a lot of today’s issues in context by providing a short history of semantics on the web, and was put created by Michael Wesch, of Kansas State University. Interestingly, he is an assistant professor of anthropology, as opposed to a computer scientist, which is why I think that his interpretation is quite unique.

It is a thought provoking video, accompanied by some suitably electronic music, and well worth the 5 minutes that it lasts.

And when you have finished watching the video, head over to Wesch’s Digital Ethnography website to see some of the reactions, and even video responses. This is a fascinating project to watch.

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Yahoo Tag Maps

Yahoo have just released a service called TagMaps, allowing you to display a tag cloud of the most interesting terms attached to geotagged Flickr photos on an interactive map.

TagMaps are a new way to visualize text on geographic maps. TagMaps can be used to communicate key characteristics of location-based data in an easy-to-understand way.

A TagMap can be embedded into into your website (for non-commercial use):

It’s not as useful as it might first appear though. The only tags that show are the most “interesting” (often just the most tags for an area), hence the above example for Salisbury shows “cathedral, Old Sarum, and Salisbury” and nothing more granular than that. And you have to click the “View on World Explorer” text at the top to actually see the photos. The tag “cathedral” actually disappears when you zoom in closer, for example. There’s some work to go, it seems.

I like the idea though - it could have some useful heritage applications, which could be especially useful as satellite and aerial photography is improved on the service. Imagine looking at the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape - a big area indeed. Seeing words like “tin” or “copper” or “engine house” etc etc could enable you to explore some photos and narrow down where to go and visit according to your interest.

One to watch as it develops.

Link: Yahoo TagMaps
Seen on: O’Reilly Radar: World Explorer, Explore Your Town With Flickr

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What was here?

This week sees the launch of wherewashere.com:

whatwasHere.com wants to revolutionise how history is written. Its pilot website in Liverpool tells history like it’s never been told before: by everyone. It doesn’t only tell the capital H history of Liverpool, but the everything-interesting-that-ever-happened-to-the-people-who-actually-live-there history of Liverpool. It’s oral history for the My Space era.

Based around Google maps, the site lets people instantly publish the stories that matter to them on the spot where they happened, discuss other people’s stories, use the Timeline to go back in time, make connections between big events and small across the map. If you know something that happened in Liverpool, put it on!

whatwasHere.com’s aim is to get everyone - yes everyone - writing history.

You can follow the project blog at http://blog.whatwashere.com/

What Was Here interface, November 2006
Continue reading ‘What was here?’

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Science Museum web development blog

The New Media group at London’s Science Museum have begun blogging. Currently, they are covering the progress of their upcoming website redesign, as well as handy extra features that they are implementing around their extensive website.

It’s always nice to see a little of what happens ‘behind the scenes’ and learn about the decisions (and techniques) used by a national museum to communicate their collections. I’m fascinated by the deconstruction of their own website as it stands - it’s good food for thought for the ones that I run. We can all learn from each other…

Link: http://www.sciencemuseumdev.org.uk/

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New look Oxford Archaeology website

Oxford Archaeology's new look websiteOxford Archaeology have recently given their website a complete facelift. In a bold move, visitors to their ‘old’ domain name www.oxfordarch.co.uk are redirected to http://www.thehumanjourney.net/ where the front page contains none of the usual blurb about the company, just a menu and a large showcase image, currently a “Study for the female heidelbergensis face based on the Broken Hill skull”. It’s a compelling and powerful image.

They have moved much of their content over to a Joomla CMS, and employ some other open source projects such as Gallery. We are promised much more innovation as part of their “Open Archaeology” programme.
Continue reading ‘New look Oxford Archaeology website’

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Portable Antiquities Scheme Blog

Today, I’ve just discovered that the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a voluntary scheme to record archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales, have a blog and a whole slew of RSS feeds.

The PAS blog covers pretty much everything done by the Scheme, from technical notes about the website the the information contained withing the PAS database, to spotlighting particular finds of note. It’s an interesting read for techies and non-techies alike.

At the time of writing, the latest post covers the scheme’s usage of open source software. It’s nice to read something like this from a fellow heritage professional:

It should be recognised that IE sucks by now.

Yes!

I’m reading the post as I write this, I confess, and it’s just mentioned me as a “guru”. Well I never! Moreimportantly, it’s mentioned that the PAS will be implementing geotagging later in the summer, which is heartening, as I’ve been very keen to see this applied to in a heritage context. Well done, guys!

Link: Portable Antiquities Scheme blog

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Online Heritage 2.0 : staring into that crystal ball

Lion
Lion door knocker from the door of the Greek Orthodox cathedral, London

I have had two posts in perpetual draft for some time now. When you start staring into the crystal ball, you can watch forever, and the world of the web changes quickly. As you read more, your ideas change, and things get out of date. Hence I have decided to publish my thoughts more regularly, and in smaller doses, rather than posting a behemoth of an article rather infrequently.

To get to the meat of the title of this post, I have been using the so-called “Web 2.0″ tools and techniques for some years now, both within and without the heritage industry, and it’s been an interesting experience so far. I’m going to review where I have seen it go, and where I see it going.
Continue reading ‘Online Heritage 2.0 : staring into that crystal ball’

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