|
Welcome to the first newsletter from the Museum Data Service!
We’ve lots of updates following our launch in September 2024 – new staff, dozens of new museum partners, and various invitations to get involved with the MDS.
|
|
|
Announcing our Head of Service and Technology Manager
|
You might have seen that Mia Ridge (hi, that’s me!) was appointed as Head of Service for the Museum Data Service in April on part-time secondment from the British Library. We’re equally delighted that Technology Manager Sam Hall joined us in March 2026. We’d like to thank Kevin Gosling for his vital contributions as handover consultant, and Andy Ellis, Ross Parry, David Gelsthorpe and the MDS Board of Trustees for their support. |
|
|
Invitation to join our Museum and Researcher User Groups
|
We have three informal advisory groups who act as ‘critical friends’, helping us stay true to our values and purpose while anticipating changes in the museum, policy and technology landscapes.
We’ve already worked with early adopters who provided feedback as well as data during the start-up project, but now it’s time to invite additional voices. We’re looking for around ten additional members each for two of these groups: our museum user group, and researcher user group.In each case, the groups meet twice a year online at meetings attended by the Head of Service, a member of the MDS Board of Trustees and MDS staff.We’re looking to recruit diverse groups that represents a range of users. Members can act as critical friends on matters such as user experience, comms and messaging, training and other support needs, data ethics and our future priorities.For the museums user group, we’re looking for people from a range of museum types, sizes, locations and roles. You don’t need to be an MDS partner – we're also keen to understand the barriers some museums face in joining our service.For the researcher user group, we’re looking for representation across a wide range of disciplines and industries, career stages, and types of research.
|
|
If you would like to be considered for one of these groups, please send an email to support@museumdata.uk.
In your email, please state which user group you’re interested in joining – museums or researchers.
Please also tell us something (in up to 300 or so words) about why you’re interested in joining that group, how you use or might use the MDS, your location, type and size of institution, and the perspectives that your experience and interests to date might bring to the group.
|
|
|
Progress update: funding, features and events
|
In August 2025, we secured three years of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). We’re grateful to AHRC for its continued support, which has already enabled stronger contributions to the UK’s research digital infrastructure. We have also strengthened our relationship with N-RICH and other Digital Arts and Humanities (iDAH) funded initiatives.The MDS launched in September 2024 with 22 museums and about 3 million records. 21 months later, we have over 130 museums nearly 7.6 million records.
|
 Caption: Object records in MDS |
As the number of records available via MDS has increased, it’s enabled a huge increase in the number of artworks on ArtUK. By building MDS into the process for adding new artworks, ArtUK hit 1 million artwork records in February - just as they were celebrating their 10-year anniversary. Before incorporating MDS into their process, there were just over 300,000 records on ArtUK.In December 2025, the South West Collection Explorer launched with a collections search powered by our API. They’re one of the first projects showing how the MDS can support other digital projects.We’ve been working on our website and APIs, including the launch of a map view of museums and their collections based on MDS data. This was aided by our first Wikimedian-in-residence, Andy Mabbett, and researchers Alex Fitzpatrick and Xuewen Yang. More recently, Haixin Huang completed a two week placement from UCL and wrote about her work checking for new museum records with the Mapping Museums Database, Excel and OpenRefine. Finally, we’re looking forward to presenting on the MDS at conferences including:
|
|
|
Now’s a great time to join the MDS
|
If you’ve been thinking about signing up to MDS, or finding out more about what’s involved, now’s an excellent time to send us an Expression of Interest.If you want to find out more about the MDS first, you can watch an informative talk by our Museum Data Manager Arran Rees, or attend an Introduction to MDS.
|
Introduction to MDS sessions, online
|
We have three MDS introduction sessions planned over the summer; each an hour long. The sessions are designed to give an overview of what type of data is in the Museum Data Service and help museums understand the joining process. We have sessions planned on 24 June, 23 July and 25 August, all starting at 11am.Book onto a session via the events page on our website: https://museumdata.uk/events/
|
|
|
Research collaboration opportunities
|
Small grants scheme – UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association
|
The UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association are running a pilot small grants scheme for early-career researchers and early-career practitioners working in the GLAM sector. If you have an idea for a project that would involve data from the Museum Data Service, do let us know! More information on the grants available here: https://digitalhumanities-uk-ie.org/2026/05/01/2026-small-grants-scheme/But act fast – the call closes on 19 June 2026.
|
|
|
Finally - share your stories!
|
|
We’re aiming to send this newsletter about six times a year, but we don’t want it to be all about us – we'd love to share your news too. Has the Museum Data Service already made a difference to you in some way? We’re looking for museums with stories we can feature on our blog, social media and in this newsletter, or just to learn more about how the MDS has helped. Get in touch at support@museumdata.uk.
|
|
Thanks for reading to the end! If you have any feedback or requests for content, please let us know.
Cheers,
Mia
Head of Service, Museum Data Service
|
|
|
|
|
