@@ -6,6 +6,6 @@ The potential project is trying to facilitate the usage of objects as historical
Thanks to the my job at the museum I've gotten some insight into how data about objects is stored and specifically which data is stored. In my opinion especially the *which data* can be improved to facilitate the access of historians to the objects. At the moment most objects (at least in the museum I work in, but I'll assume, that it's similar for other institutions) only receive a very limited description based on size (for storing), damage (for possible restoration), age, provenance (from where the object came into the collection) or place of finding and a rough description of materials used. This is partly because the sheer amount of objects is overwhelming. The medium sized museum I work at currently has alone around 70'000 objects stored. It's simply not possible to cover every object in detail. But I think you could improve it.
For one the kind of information, which is being stored, could be changed to cater to the needs of historians. Besides the current information, which is mostly for archival purposes, specific information could be added for historical research. For example the production location, the exact materials processed and their origin, the object's journey before it entered the collection, etc. could help historians using an object as a starting point for their research or placing it in an existing work. One way to achieve this could be to utilize **public science** and tap into the knowledge and time of interested individuals. So constructing your data bank like Wikipedia, where anybody can make changes to existing data sets and a second, educated party reviews these changes. The project for the Übung would then be creating a website with a number of objects, on which people can make suggestion on information to add. This will be controlled/researched by second party (me) and then either merged or discarded.
For one the kind of information, which is being stored, could be changed to cater to the needs of historians. Besides the current information, which is mostly for archival purposes, specific information could be added for historical research. For example the production location, the exact materials processed and their origin, the object's journey before it entered the collection, etc. could help historians using an object as a starting point for their research or placing it in an existing work. One way to achieve this could be to utilize **public science** and tap into the knowledge and time of interested individuals. So constructing your data bank like Wikipedia, where anybody can make changes to existing data sets and a second, educated party reviews these changes. The project for the Übung would then be creating a website with a number of objects, on which people can make suggestion on information to add. This will be controlled/researched by second party (me) and then either merged or discarded. //apparently Omeka has the possibility of user-generated content, maybe that's something.
Another idea is to add **digital methods to gain information** about objects. Maybe if there is something like a image recognition software, which is specialized on materials, one could start taking close-up pictures of materials, which the software compares with a data bank and makes estimates on, what the different materials of the objects are. This is going in the direction @daniel.mcdonald suggested in #6 but with a more archival and historical focus. The question is, if this is actually achievable in a few weeks. The project then would be take some objects, take pictures of materials, then use the software to add tags to the data set, enriching the information we have about the object.
