explore and share cultural heritage collections with viewshare.org

Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist,

The Library of Congress

trow@loc.gov

@tjowens

In Visualization, “knowledge is not transferred, revealed or perceived, but is created through a dynamic process”

Jessop, Visualization as Scholarly Activity, LLC, 2008

a free and open platform for

creating dynamic visual interfaces

to digital collections

this a quick introduction

see screencastand guides for the

details

what

viewshare

does

take this

or this

and make…

visual

displays

dynamic

facets

embeded

in your site

expose

open data

but the end result is just part

of the story

interface building facilitates deeper understanding

in Visualization, “knowledge is not transferred, revealed or perceived, but is created through a dynamic process”

Jessop, Visualization as Scholarly Activity, LLC, 2008

Visual Displays

timelines; lists; charts;

galleries; maps[

Different Facets

lists;

histograms;

tag clouds[

importWorkflow

importWorkflow

augment

importWorkflow

augment

build

importWorkflow

augment

build

share

but the end result is just part

of the story

importWorkflow

augment

build

share

Interface building facilitates deeper understanding of collections

Interface building facilitatesremediation

In Visualization, “knowledge is not transferred, revealed or perceived, but is created through a dynamic process”

Jessop, Visualization as Scholarly Activity, LLC, 2008

A for instance…

Samuel H. Kress Collection History Database: National Gallery of ArtViewshare Demo

one collection spread across multiple institutions

a view built in a matter of hours from data exported from a custom database

Illustrates new ways of seeing your collection

cost of art

over time

at a particular institution

examine an individual outlier

pivot to a chart to see what medium those works are on

change the chart to see what schools of art the works represent

or explore other points for comparison…

see a list of works by artist from a given date range

only see the works

1) $ more than 13k 2) bought in 1937

Now, see what institutions those objects are at

You can add as many filters and pivot through the views to your hearts content

Just playing with collection data reveals patterns and opens questions

In Visualization, “knowledge is not transferred, revealed or perceived, but is created through a dynamic process”

Jessop, Visualization as Scholarly Activity, LLC, 2008