Thursday 5 March 2009

The great API challenge

Another MCG (museums computer group) discussion list post repurposed as a blog post... In a discussion about the Brooklyn Museum API following on from discussion of the NMOLP 'Creative Spaces' project, Richard Light asked:

Don't we need a standard for what a museum API looks like, and what it delivers? Even better, shouldn't we stop thinking that we need to invent everything we use, and just adopt something like the Linked Data paradigm?


I quickly checked with Daniel, our head of web, that it was ok for me to throw this open to the world, and posted in response:

Science Museum is looking at releasing an API soon - project-specific to start with, but with the intention of using that as an iterative testing and learning process, and I'd be happy to talk to other museums about what they're doing to try and come up with something with at least some core similarities in the schema and functionality. Anyone up for it?


So, are you up for it? I've had a few good responses already. My vague idea is maybe using digitalheritage.ning.com to share data schemas, API functionality, discuss the various acronyms we're using, etc.

You can leave a comment here, or join the ning, or @miaridge on twitter.

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