Museum Data Service is a cross-sector catalogue which aims to provide access to over 100 million records from 1,750 UK museums. It launched on 12th September 2024 with an initial collection of 3,129,798 records from 21 museums. A further 1,951,719 records are already in the pipeline.
The platform was set up thanks to start-up funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, and is being maintained by funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It is a collaboration between Art UK, Collections Trust and the University of Leicester.
It enables museums to easily upload their object records, whilst making it easy for users to search and retrieve records across multiple collections and diverse databases. The service is designed to be accessible for all museums, regardless of size, providing an inclusive and sustainable way to share and preserve the UK’s cultural heritage.
The impact of the MDS will be far-reaching. Researchers in digital humanities will have unprecedented access to large-scale data sets, museum curators will find it easier to research objects for exhibitions whilst members of the general public will be able to find information about individual objects, their location and opening times of the museums.
It is possible to browse the service by collection and search for individual objects.
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