birkbeck / mapping-museums

Data analytics for the Mapping Museums project (R code and data)

Mapping Museums - Data and Code for Analytics

Abstract

This repository contains R code and datasets used to generate statistics and visualisations for the following publications:

• Candlin, F. and Ballatore, A. and Larkin, J. and Poulovassilis, A. and Katerinchuk, V. and Liebenrood, M. (2023) The UK museum boom: continuity and change 1960-2019. Cultural Trends
• Ballatore, A. and Candlin, F. (2023) A geography of UK museums. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
• Candlin, F., Larkin, J., Ballatore, A., & Poulovassilis, A. (2020) The missing museums: accreditation, surveys, and an alternative account of the UK sector. Cultural Trends, 29(1), 50-67
• F. Candlin, J. Larkin, A. Ballatore, and A. Poulovassilis (2020) Mapping Museums 1960–2020: A report on the data. London: Birkbeck, University of London.

Project resources

This is one of the repositories linked to the Mapping Museums project at Birkbeck, University of London and King's College London:

• Museum database: https://museweb.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/data
• Web app source code: https://github.com/MappingMuseums/MappingMuseums-MMWebApp
• Data and Code for Analytics (this repository): https://github.com/Birkbeck/mapping-museums

See also related AHRC project Museums in the Pandemic: https://github.com/Birkbeck/museums-in-the-pandemic

Project description

Mapping Museums is a four year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (funding link). It is based in the Department of History of Art and the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at Birkbeck, University of London.

The research team:

• collected and validated data on over 4,000 museums
• devised a new system for subject classification
• designed a database that allows that information to be browsed, searched, and visualised in nuanced ways
• analysed the data and identified patterns in the emergence, distribution, and closure of museums, produced a findings report
• investigated trends in the data through historical and interview-based research

Other pages on the website provide detailed information about data collection, the software we developed, interview-based research, and findings.

Research team

• Prof Fiona Candlin had overall responsibility for co-ordinating and delivering the Mapping Museums project. She also led on developing new approaches to defining museums and a new subject classification system, and has worked closely with other team members on database and website development, and data collection.
• Prof Alexandra Poulovassilis had overall responsibility for designing and developing the database, web application, and website. She also worked closely with Candlin on managing other aspects of the project.
• Dr Andrea Ballatore advised on the development of the Mapping Museums database, web application, and website, particularly in relation to Geographic Information Systems. He conducted the spatial analysis of the museum locations and the predictive modelling on visitor numbers.
• Dr Toby Butler organised and conducted the interview based research with founders, staff, and volunteers from over forty museums.
• Dr Val Katerinchuk designed additional functionality for the database and web application, and developed the project website.
• Dr Jamie Larkin led on data collection, data cleaning, and data validation, and contributed to the development of new museums definitions and subject classification system.
• Nick Larson developed the first version of the project database and web application.
• Dr Mark Liebenrood contributed to data validation, updating the dataset, and website development.
• Dr Jake Watts conducted a wide range of historical, social, cultural, and economic research that informed the overall research analysis.

Project publications

See https://museweb.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/publications

Maintainer

Andrea Ballatore © King's College London