Comments on: Collections Online update: Mapping

By: philipedgar

philipedgar — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:19:06 +0000

Hi Levi
Yes, we do have some links to pages in Collections Online from wikipedia and google analytics also tells us our referrals from wikipedia are quite high. Of course, wikipedia content needs to be created by wikipedian volunteers – an institution like ourselves cannot directly author content in wikipedia. The British Museum has recently collaborated with wikipedia to explore potential relationships. You may be interested in reading the following on this from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/arts/design/05wiki.html
regards
Philip

By: Levi

Levi — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 14:34:14 +0000

Hi Adrian, My thoughts around linking up with wikipedia would be more in the from of inbound links to the collections. In my opinion doing so would increase the social benefits of the collection many fold.

One of my pet hates about wikipedia is the amount of misinformation that can be spread through the articles due to the non professional nature of many of the authors!

Wikipedia tends to have been anointed with a very high search ranking by the search engines on subject matter and historical events etc, etc. I reckon that studied and informed people should be writing articles on wikipedia and linking them back into the database so students can follow through to reputable and reliable learning material!

And in the process increase the popularity of the online collection, which could in turn increase it’s capacity!

Like I said though, just a thought!

By: adriankingston

adriankingston — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:52:14 +0000

Hi Levi, thanks for the comment and encouragement, it's always good to hear new ideas and how people are using Collections Online. The links all appear to be working ok so maybe you just came across the problem while the blog or Collections Online was having a few hiccups. Regarding linking to Wikipedia, we currently have a few links to Wikipedia to provide some extra information for some of our People pages (eg Rembrandt van Rijn). We also link to other sites in a similar fashion, such as to the Dictionary of NZ Biography, and other museums and galleries from People pages. However linking out to other websites is something we're keen to explore more, as we don't hold all the information, and there are some other great resources out there. We've recently implemented some changes to our collections information system to make this happen from more points in Collections Online, so watch this space.

By: Levi

Levi — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:01:32 +0000

Hi,
The links on this page all seem to be broken! This project that you are working on looks really cool! I can see something like this becoming quite expansive. The potential applications are huge. In fact why stop at just mapping the collection?

If I might add a suggestion, using historical places of interest revolving around the particular type of article might work for some of the non place specific objects that you’ve got!

i.e. ‘this ancient baked bean tin date’s bake to the land wars and was issued to colonial soldiers who fought against the Maori’s. one of the most notiable of these battles was fought at………. ‘

Just a thought, You could link the collections up with Wikipeadia articles and I reckon you’d have a smash hit on your hands!
The educational value of this project to our school children is invaluable.