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20 Aug 2014

General public catalogues collection of 30,000 artefacts at the British Museum using open source technology

A Wikipedia-esque crowd-sourcing project has been used by the British Museum to transcribe a handwritten catalogue dating back to the 18th century – comprising 30,000 metalwork objects from across the ages – with the entire database going online in an open-source format.

The images – which are freely available in return for the volunteers’ assistance in cataloguing the vast collection – will form one of the largest databases on prehistoric metalwork anywhere in the world and can actually be used to 3D print any object in the database.

The online collection is copyright free – as well as the information – which, much like Wikipedia, is available on open-source software and can be republished freely.

The level of commitment from the public has been varied, with some doing just a handful of of tasks, while the top contributor has completed more than 2,900 online files.

Volunteers across the world have been logging in online to help transcribe more than 30,000 of the handwritten catalogue cards dating back to the late 18th century. Each image has been digitally photographed from multiple angles to enable the use of 3D printing.

Once complete, the information will be added to the Portable Antiquities database, which is close to containing its one millionth artefact since it was started in 1997.

The British Museum says it would have taken staff several years to complete the task on their own, but with the help of crowd sourcing, the project is on target to be completed within 12 months.