As part of the Digital Collections & Access team, Collections Data Manager Gareth Watkins supports kaimahi across the museum to input and maintain accurate information in EMu, Te Papa’s Collection Management System, ensuring it supports the documentation and management of more than a million collection taonga objects and natural historyRead more
The possibilities of using Generative AI in a positive way to enhance collection accessibility and findability has sparked a pilot project by history curator Katie Cooper and Collections Data Manager Gareth Watkins. In the first of a series of blogs, Katie and Gareth take you on their AI journey.Read more
It would be hard to miss that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has seen an exponential rise in programming, availability, use, and debate in the last few years. Here at Te Papa, we’ve been looking at possible use cases for the Digital Museum, and investigating safe ways to connect the collections to visitors. In this blog, Collections Data Manager Gareth Watkins describes his experiments with ways Generative AI can tell richer stories and enable deeper connections to our collection database.Read more
Being sure that we’re all talking about the same person is a vital part of sharing collections and data between sources. Lucy Schrader, Digital Channels Outreach Manager, shows how we’re using Wikidata to make it easier.Read more
We look after a large collection here at Te Papa and with that comes a lot of data. With many of our teams wanting various information about our collections as a spreadsheet – preferably with thumbnail images – we’re always looking at how we can streamline requests. Collections Data Manager GarethRead more
A study published in the journal Science today reveals a new and unexpected origin for New Zealand’s iconic kiwi and overturns the previous idea that the ancestors of kiwi flew directly over from Australia (see Miocene fossils show that Kiwi are probably not phyletic dwarves, Paleornithological Research 2013, and St Bathan’sRead more
