Linking museums: machine-readable data in cultural heritage July 7, 2010

A meetup for people interested in the applications of linked data, microformats, RDFa (etc) for museums and the cultural heritage sector.

More info and sign-up at http://museum-api.pbworks.com/July-2010-meetup

The Shooting Star is at 125-129 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JF (very near Liverpool Street Station). The 'gallery' is reserved for Mia for 7:30pm. The pub serves food (yay!) and if you're a football World Cup fan, there is a screen in the venue, but we're at the opposite end from it (hmm). Tweet @mia_out with any questions or comments.

Why?
I'm trying to cut through the chicken and egg problem - as a museum technologist, I can work towards getting machine-readable data available, but I'm not sure which formats and what data would be most useful for developers who might use it. Without a critical mass of take-up for any one type, the benefits of any one data source are more limited for developers. But museums seem to want a sense of where the critical mass is going to be so they can build for that. How do we cut through this and come up with a sensible roadmap?

Who?
You! If you're interested in using museum data in mashups but find it difficult to get started or find the data available isn't easily usable; if you have data you want to publish; if you work in a museum and have a data publication problem you'd like help in solving; if you are a cheerleader for your favourite acronym...

Put another way, this event is for you if you're interested in publishing and sharing data about their museums and collections through technologies such as linked data and microformats.
Structure
Pretty informal! I'm not sure how much we can get done but it'd be nice to put faces to names, and maybe start some discussions around the various problems that could be solved and tools that could be created with machine-readable data in cultural heritage.
What could we work towards after the meeting?
Share your ideas at http://museum-api.pbworks.com/July-2010-meetup

Official Website: http://museum-api.pbworks.com/July-2010-meetup