Improved Access to Mesoamerican Collections Worldwide

Institutions holding artifacts from Mesoamerica are being approached in order to ask them to make their collections accessible online: their catalogs, photographs of the artifacts, etc. In line with the OpenGLAM Principles^[1], they are asked to make their catalogs available in a machine-readable format, and – to the extent possible – to make the photographs available for reuse by uploading them to Wikimedia Commons. Progress of the project will be documented on Wikimedia Commons and/or on the Spanish Wikipedia.

So far, this project has been pursued by Opendata.ch as a pilot project in cooperation with the Benemérita Universidad de Puebla (BUAP), focusing on ethnographic collections in Switzerland. In a next step, this project could be extended to Mexican institutions, before extending it to institutions in further countries. Reaching out to the different museums and convincing them to open up their collections requires a long-term outreach effort that is ideally coupled with a GLAM hackathon, a university class, or a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, in order to provide the institutions with concrete examples of data reuse. Ideally, a broader form of cooperation with the museums that goes beyond the mere publication of data evolves over time.

In the context of the Swiss GLAMhack, we are looking for Swiss partner institutions who are willing to support us in our endeavor.

To spur the creation of artistic projects based on Mexico-related heritage collections in Switzerland, Opendata.ch has teamed up with the BUAP. Together, we have implemented a novel method (termed “CultureFLOW”) for the facilitation of artistic creative processes that engage with collective memories, in the form both of heritage artifacts and of living memories. A pilot project has been implemented that involves students in visual arts from Mexico as well as Mexico-related heritage collections in Switzerland. Three artistic projects that have arisen from this cooperation will be presented at the Open GLAM Night on 5 September 2024 in Lucerne.  

As a next step, BUAP is planning to hold a GLAM hackathon in Puebla, México, in 2025, where the datasets / collections pertaining to Mesoamerican cultures will again be promoted and where their usage will be encouraged. Another avenue to facilitate the (re)use of these datasets / collections is the planned creation of a Wikipedia/Wikimedia Club at the university.

Making Collections Accessible Online: A Step-by-Step Guide

Making heritage collections accessible online is a step-by-step process (see figure 1). In this section, we summarize the insights gathered in the course of the Swiss pilot project in 2024, with a focus on ethnographic collections. With regard to some aspects, earlier experiences with natural history collections are taken into account as well.

Figure 1: Making Collections Accessible Online in Three Phases

Phase 1: Laying the Foundations

There are two important first steps that need to be accomplished before collections can be made available online:

1. Existing collection catalogs, finding aids, etc. need to be digitized. In some cases, a central collection catalog will need to be created from scratch, based on existing documents or the physical organization of the collection (no. 1 in the figure).

Best Practice:Digitize existing (analog) catalogs in order to be able to link the entries in the digital catalog to earlier versions of the catalog (sources). Example: Collection catalog of the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (see the links to the historical catalogs at the bottom of the page).

1. Given the fact that catalogs of ethnographic collections often contain only very little information about the artifacts and the information available may be of dubious quality, it is important to provide photographs of collection artifacts alongside the catalog information. Consequently, existing photographs need to be digitized or new photographs need to be taken (no. 2).

Best Practice:

When taking new photographs of artifacts, make sure to secure sufficient usage rights to the photographs to (later) be able to release the high-resolution images online under a free copyright license.(provide a sample contract…) 

Phase 2: Facilitating Access

An important next step is to make the collection catalog available online (no. 3). Depending on the maturity level of the database, this can be done in various forms. As a rule, it is more useful to make the existing catalog available online now than to wait until it can be done in the perfect format .

Thus, for example, the publication of the catalog in PDF format as an intermediate solution (example: Inventory Lists of Museum der Kulturen Basel) provides for better online access than would the decision not to publish exports from the current collection database and to wait for the acquisition and roll-out of an online collection database instead.

Best Practices:

• Provide images alongside the text information contained in the collection database.
• The images should have the highest resolution (legally) possible, in order to maximize their usefulness.
• The entry for each artifact should have its own persistent identifier; persistent identifiers should be dereferenceable (i.e. an URI consisting of a standard path and the persistent identifier should return the description of the artifact in the online catalog).
• Artifacts should be findable in the collection database when a user enters the persistent identifier in the search interface.

In addition, the institution should signal its readiness to respond to and to engage with potential re-users of the data. This can be done by different means, e.g.:

• Indicate an address and a method by which high-resolution images of collection artifacts can be obtained and ensure an efficient process for doing so.
• Advertise the catalog and digital images in the context of hackathons to encourage their re-use.
• Advertise the catalog, digital images, and further information about the collection in the context of a Wikipedia edit-a-thon.

Best Practices:

• Provide pointers to competent experts that can provide potential re-users of the data with additional information about the collection or individual artifacts.

Example Case: Musée d’ethnographie de Genève

Phase 3: Facilitating Re-use

Re-use of data and digitized artifacts can be facilitated using several strategies:

1. If the rights situation (copyright, personal rights, collective rights of the communities concerned) allows for it, digitized artifacts should be made available online under a free copyright license in the highest quality possible. To facilitate their reuse in the context of Wikipedia and elsewhere, the high-resolution images can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, alongside their metadata.

Best Practices:

• To facilitate the interlinking of collections, collection items should be described on Wikidata. If no high-resolution image can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons for legal reasons, Wikidata entries could point to the respective entry in the online catalog.
• If the detailed description of individual artifacts in Wikidata seems too onerous, object collections can be referenced by means of the method described at the WikiProject “Heritage Collections” in order to improve their discoverability in the future.  

Example Case: Museum Rietberg… 

1. Data re-use can be proactively promoted and facilitated by an institution's active involvement in hackathons, edit-a-thons, or other participatory formats in the role of a data provider, challenge owner, and/or (co-)organizer, and/or by having its staff members participate actively in such events as resource persons, facilitators, or regular participants working alongside other participants.Example Case: Museum Schloss Burgdorf… 
2. To enhance their impact and visibility, third party contributions, such as new creations based on the data provided, improvements to the data, or linkages to other collections, can be fed back into the collection (or the collection database) and/or given some visibility within an institution’s exhibition(s).Example Case: Museum Schloss Burgdorf…     

Example Cases

Contact:

• Sandra Palacios (sandra.palaciosg at correo.buap.mx)
• Beat Estermann (beat.estermann at opendata.ch)

Participants:

• Joris Burla (Museum Rietberg, Zürich)

[1] https://openglam.org/principles/