This GitHub is the beginning of a research hub that takes on the challenge to connect open data of museum collections.
We aim to start a discussion about possibilities to create standards that allow data scientists, researchers and museum staff to connect open data from museums without having to go through a long process of data matching.
The idea is not to force museums to use a newly developed database system because it seems unrealistic to standardize object description and categorization internationally and we enforce diversity in the understanding and description of objects.
We encourage museums to publish their data as open access data with a standard formatting provided through an API that we are hoping to build. The current state of the art that each institution publishes their own custom build API and differing open access descriptors is inefficient.
The goal is to build a standard API for open access data in museums that allows to connect museum collection data globally.
Before this development takes off, we are connecting with developers in museums on GitHub to start a conversation about feasibility, pros and cons and projects that are also working in this direction.