Opening up museum collections with RSS

The Queen Mary arriving at Southampton
BHC2492 The Passenger Liner ‘Queen Mary’ Arriving at Southampton, 27 March 1936
(Repro ID: BHC2492 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

Last week, Mike Ellis posted about RSS feeds in museums. Specifically, how useful it would be if search results were available as newsfeeds. After a bit of tinkering around, and a fair amount of swearing at catalogue descriptions written in the Windows extended character set, I’ve now set up feeds for the National Maritime Museum collections. If your web browser supports RSS, then you should be able to find a feed on almost any page that generates a list of catalogue records. Here are some examples – a search for ‘tower bridge’; objects from the Atlantic Worlds galleries; paintings and drawings by Charles Pears; photographs of the Aquitania; relics found at Erebus Bay. The collections search is also available via OpenSearch, which I’ve tested in Firefox and IE7. If your browser supports OpenSearch, then ‘NMM Collections’ should be available as a search engine from any page under http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/. This is really cool, as it opens up our collections to be used by any application that can consume RSS. I’ve also extended the news feed items with catalogue metadata using dc:coverage (publication info), dcterms:spatial (geographical coverage) and dcterms:temporal (date made), which opens up the possibility of plotting the objects on maps or timelines.

Olympic torch protest



Olympic torch protest, originally uploaded by eat your greens.

Blackheath & Greenwich Amnesty turned out at the Millennium Dome yesterday to welcome the olympic torch to Greenwich. Thanks to everyone who showed up. I’ve posted some photos from the group on flickr.

I missed the protest. As secretary, I was representing the local group at the national AGM in Nottingham. It was a great conference. I met other London activists, heard some inspiring speakers from around the world, took part in an action in support of the Tiananmen mothers, and did a bit of dancing too.

Free the Word!, 11 – 13 April 2008

I’ve just heard about this writing festival, next weekend at the South Bank.

I am writing to tell you about an event which is being organised by International PEN, Free The Word! festival, taking place around the Southbank from 11-13 April.

International PEN is the worldwide writers association, which represents the conscience of world literature, defends freedom of expression and promotes the development of a community of writers across cultures and languages.

This weekend of events promises to engage with stories from all over the globe in unexpected and extraordinary encounters. Be part of an intimate conversation, a raucous debate, a provocative cabaret or just listen to dialogues between eminent and emerging writers as they discuss their role as creators, thinkers and interpreters in society.

The full programme is printed in the Free the Word! PDF brochure (1.1MB download).

Kitchen door



Kitchen door, originally uploaded by eat your greens.

“I bet you could rip that out with a claw hammer”, said Neil C. He was right too…

So I’ve spent my Easter Sunday ripping the flat apart with my bare hands. Cos , baby… There’s something quite satisfying about demolishing 30-year-old DIY.

We call upon the author to explain



Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, originally uploaded by eat your greens.

Blair Millen tagged me to write six unimportant things so here goes:

  • My favourite record at the moment is .
  • I was born, and grew up, in .
  • I spent a semester of grad school on academic probation, with the threat of being kicked off my PhD if I didn’t improve my grades.
  • I spent this afternoon painting the spare room.
  • I first used e-mail in 1989. No internet back then, as I recall.
  • I’m about to make a nice cup of fairtrade tea. Cheers!

Cambridge students and lecturers demonstrate to close Guantanamo Bay



Cambridge students and lecturers demonstrate to close Guantanamo Bay, originally uploaded by Amnesty International UK.

Spotted on flickr, Cambridge students formed a human Amnesty candle to protest against Guantanamo.

Top London web sites

Staff outside Sainsbury's
Staff outside Sainsbury’s, 114 Lewisham High St, c. 1915
Photo credit: Lewisham Library.

Time Out published their top 50 London web sites recently. PortCities London featured in the history section, which pleased me no end. I was technical lead for the PortCities consortium, built the catalogue database used by the National Maritime Museum team and was heavily involved in building the London web site.

www.portcities.org.uk/london
Put together using local London libraries and archives, as well as the National Maritime Museum, this is a treasure trove of material covering all aspects of the capital’s essential and enduring relationship with the river. The archive photographs are brilliant.

>Click The ‘port facts’ that are littered through the site – like the fact that bird droppings and animal blood were imported and turned into artificial fertiliser at Silvertown.

Redecorating



Pure brilliant white, originally uploaded by eat your greens.

So, in the end, I skipped SemanticCamp this weekend to concentrate on working on the flat. After five years of thinking “I must do something about the polystyrene ceiling tiles” I have a new ceiling in the hall. Photos of the work, so far, are on flickr.

Andy Budd – shark wrangler!



Andy Budd – shark wrangler!, originally uploaded by eat your greens.

Just back from a refreshing two days in Brighton, where work sent me to a couple of workshops run by clearleft. Excellent, and inspiring, stuff from Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith.

Now for some rest before heading off to Devon on Monday…