The always groundbreaking Brooklyn Museum has now released an API to allow the public to interact with their collections data. I can't even tell you how happy I am about this in terms of an open data perspective. Also, this is the direction that makes the whole "detailed curation by passionate amateurs" thing possible.
There are only three simple methods for accessing the data. Ideally, it would be nice to see them put their collections metadata up as linked data, but now I'm daring to dream a little. Hey, wait a minute! I think that's the perfect way to start playing around with the API. Doing some digging through the documentation, I'm seeing that all the objects and creators seem to have URIs. Take a crack at it - the registration form is ready for you.
OCLC's Lorcan Dempsey makes a great point as usual in his post "Making tracks":
In recent presentations, I have been suggesting that libraries will need to adopt more archival skills as they manage digital collections and think about provenance, evidential integrity, and context, and that they will also need to adopt more museum perspectives as they think about how their digital collections work as educational resources, and consider exhibitions and interpretive environments.
I doubt that any archivist would disagree with this. Even better, I think this offers a great opportunity to reach out and have those in allied fields really understand how and why we've done things slightly different for so long. I'm glad to see that my new employer has picked up on this holistic approach with platforms like the NYPL Blogs.
