Fifteen Dutch artists, cultural organisations and companies receive a Best Practice rosette today for their outstanding digital art or culture projects. The New Institute, a merger of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Premsela and Virtual Platform, continues this tradition that originated at Virtual Platform.
Two of these were awarded to participants in the Open Cultuur Data network: a data provider and a webdesign company. One rosette goes to the Rijksmuseum API, through which the Amsterdam-based Rijksmuseum offers access to 110,000 Public Domain images from their rich collections. The Best Practice jury says
The Rijksmuseum API and Rijksstudio use existing resources, namely the digitised collection of the Rijksmuseum, in an innovative way. The Rijksstudio has a smart business model that allows users to turn their favourite artsworks into an object immediately. The Rijksmuseum thus serves a broad audience, from children to app developers and art lovers.
The other award goes to Vistory, the mobile app from GlimwormIT. This app combines historical video material from Open Images with current ones that can be created by people themselves.
The jury appreciated the way in which Vistory can be used by the public. The app has a strong educational character, but could also be used in the tourism sector. You could for instance make a walking route based on the app. Also, Vistory stimulates user participation by asking them to add footage and consequently enrich the dataset. It is an exemplary app that show how open data can be implemented and used.
You can read the full jury reports here and here (in Dutch). Our congratulations go out to the Rijksmuseum and to GlimwormIT for the acknowledgement of their efforts to offer and use Open Culture Data!