Dan Zambonini and Mike Ellis, hoard.it: Aggregating, displaying and mining object-data without consent

hoard.it : Stealing your data Or... “Where is your online value?” Or... “Originality sucks” Dan Zambonini www.boxuk.com Museums and the Web 2009, Indianapolis, April 16

WARNING

WARNING 1. I am playing Devil’s Advocate 2. These are‘thoughts in progress’

Introduction 1. The hoard.it project 2. Museums and the Web: where’s the value?

2.5 - 15%

Cross-Collections Projects “Search through the cultural collections of Europe” “explore and comment on collections” “find and explore digital collections from museums” “Discover cultural objects, collections”

Why is this a Problem? 1. Some duplication of effort • £25,000 - £100,000 to put collections online • £1,500 - £6,500 per cross-collection project 2. Potential end-user confusion 3. Usually only include larger institutions 4. Is there really a need?

Our Approach • Use data that already exists • No cost/duplication of effort • No input or changes from museums • Lightweight, open to all • Re-expose the data programmatically • Enable easy re-use

How it works Screen-Scraper + Spider

Difficulties and Limitations • Must have collections online • Must have a consistent template • Slow; not real-time • Technical variations (encoding, standards) • Rudimentary: Flash/Forms a barrier

Difficulties: Normalization • Dates • circa 19th century, 1960s, 2008-01, 1Jan ’52, 2000 BC, 30s, April 4 1934, 04-76, 1783-25-04, 10-11-64, about 200 AD, Victorian, 1100-1150, ... • http://feeds.boxuk.com/convert/date/ • Location • Points of interest, cities, towns, countries, administrative regions, political regions, ancient names, continents, postal codes, co-ordinates, ... • http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/

The Data Virtual Museum of Canada! Carnegie Museum of Art! Smithsonian NASM! National Museum of Australia! National Portrait Gallery! Imperial War Museum! National Museums of Scotland! Ingenious! Museum of London: E20CL! British Museum! Victoria and Albert Museum! National Maritime Museum! Powerhouse! Science Museum! 24 Hour Museum! Freebase: Events! Wikipedia: List of Painters! 0! 2000! 4000! 6000! 8000! 10000! 12000! 14000! 16000!

The Data Virtual Museum of Canada! Carnegie Museum of Art! Smithsonian NASM! National Museum of Australia! National Portrait Gallery! Imperial War Museum! National Museums of Scotland! Ingenious! Museum of London: E20CL! British Museum! Victoria and Albert Museum! National Maritime Museum! Powerhouse! Science Museum! 24 Hour Museum! Freebase: Events! Wikipedia: List of Painters! 0! 2000! 4000! 6000! 8000! 10000! 12000! 14000! 16000! 70,000 objects

The Data • URL 100% • Identifier 95% • Title 100% • Description 70% • Image 85% • Creator 50% • Created Date 75% • Copyright 50% • Dimensions 45% • Subject 65% • Location 45% • Materials 65%

Data Mining - Location 65% Europe 15% Asia 14% North America 4% Oceania Percentage of objects from the same continent as museum: • North America: 85% • Europe: 75% • Oceania: 65%

% of objects by continent of origin! 0! 10! 20! 30! 40! 50! 60! 70! 80! 90! -1000! -900! -800! -700! -600! -500! -400! -300! -200! -100! 0! 100! 200! 300! 400! 500! Year! 600! 700! 800! 900! 1000! 1100! 1200! 1300! 1400! 1500! 1600! 1700! 1800! 1900! 2000! Asia! Africa! Europe! Oceania! North America! South America! Data Mining - Date/Location

% of objects by material! 0! 5! 10! 15! 20! 25! 30! 35! 40! 0! 10 0! 20 0! 30 0! 40 0! 50 0! 60 0! 70 0! 80 0! 90 0! 10 00 ! Year! 11 0 0! 12 00 ! 13 00 ! 14 00 ! 15 00 ! 16 00 ! 17 00 ! 18 00 ! 19 00 ! 20 00 ! Clay! Gold! Silver! Stone! Data Mining - Date/Material

How it has been used • Experiments: http://hoard.it/labs/ • UK Museums on the Web 2008 Hack Day • Who knows...? Photo courtesy of Brian Kelly

How it has been used

Next steps...

Next steps... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

Do you offer anything? dbPedia, Freebase

What can you offer? • Expertise • Media • The Physical Space • Reputation and Trust • Audience • Voice, Exposure and Influence

What’s changed? “...not all information should flow everywhere; only the meaningful should be transmitted. But in the network economy only signals in real time (or close to it) are truly meaningful. Examine the speed of knowledge in your system. How can it be brought closer to real time? If this requires the cooperation of subcontractors, distant partners, and far- flung customers, so much the better.” Kevin Kelly http://www.kk.org/newrules/blog/2009/04/if-you-are-not-in-real-time-yo.php

What’s changed? !\"#$%#$& !\"#$%& '($(& )%*+,-%.& '()%&

What’s changed?

What’s changed? EXECUTION not IDEAS

What’s changed? !\"#$%&'() *+#,) !\"#$%&'( )*#+%$%&'( ,--.**%+%$&'( /0.(1%20&(3.#&\"4.*( 5.*%26(

UK Newspaper Example ,-./012345\" #!\" +\" *\" F44:G2.:=\" 6278925:\" )\" (\" '\" H2-1I\"JKL.8==\" &\" H2-1I\"A2-1\" %\" H2-1I\"A-..4.\" $\" H2-1I\"CM2.\" #\" H2-1I\">8187.2LB\" !\" D5-E08\"D=8.=\" ;2/8<44:\";25=\" ;-525/-21\">-G8=\" >B8\"N02.O-25\" >B8\"P5O8L85O85M\" >B8\"C05\" >B8\">-G8=\" 9CC\"C0<=/.-<8.=\" >?-@8.\";4114?8.=\" A85345=\"-5\"$&\"B.=\"

For example • Let your patrons collaborate • Let your patrons run your space • Give local communities a voice • Provide advice and guidance • Collect & distribute niche knowledge • ... • You know better than I do.

What has to change? • A focus on proven user needs • Re-usable services, not more data • Smaller projects • Iterative approaches • A real commitment to the web platform • (At least some) In-house development

How do we get there? • Should web projects generate revenue? • Don’t be afraid of re-inventing the wheel • Demand all projects use/expose APIs that are easy (REST not SOAP/OAI) and publicized • Show early, show often • Annoy funding bodies to support more, smaller, longer (i.e. iterative) ‘boring’ projects, and less ‘big, audacious’ projects.

Summary • We stole your data... • But then so are lots of other people... • So produce value elsewhere. • Ideas are harmful: do what’s proven... • But do it brilliantly. • And to do that, we need change.

Thank you www.boxuk.com dan@boxuk.com twitter.com/zambonini

Dan Zambonini and Mike Ellis, hoard.it: Aggregating, displaying and mining object-data without consent

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Notes on slide 1

1 Group & 1 Event