POST: From piles of material to patchwork: How do we embed the production of usable collections data into library work?

In a post entitled “From piles of material to patchwork: How do we embed the production of usable collections data into library work?” Mia Ridge (British Library) has posted her notes for the recent panel at the Always Already Computational: Collections as Data workshop, held at UC Santa Barbara last week. Her position paper outlines “the challenges in making collections available as data, based on years of working towards open cultural data from within various museums and libraries,” and covers issues of defining collections, working at scale, and linking infrastructures. She closes with advice on where those engaged in such work might also direct their attention:

We’re making a start and there’s a lot of thoughtful work behind the scenes, but maybe a bit more investment is needed from research libraries to become as comfortable with data users as they are with the readers who pass through their physical doors.

dh+lib readers can learn more about Ridge’s work in our recent Data Praxis piece “Engaging Open Cultural Data.”