Curarium

Curarium is a platform for exploring, analyzing, and making arguments about collections and the objects they comprise. It leverages the power of collections to tell stories by giving users tools ranging from item-level annotations to comprehensive, repository-wide visualizations, allowing them to bring both objects and the communities to which they belong into dialogue with one another.

Curarium isn’t an online exhibition platform, but an environment for pursuing and sharing collections-based research nimbly, intuitively, and iteratively. Browse vast numbers of objects, using an expanding library of visualization tools to generate dynamic data portraits of collections. Annotate records and images, curating them to highlight relationships and juxtapositions. Assemble those records into trays of objects, images, and visualizations to share and work collaboratively with your social circles, and transform trays into published spotlights that unlock the stories and arguments bound up in collections.

Tasks:

1. visualizations of works of art (thumbnails, titles, topics, other properties) within and across library collections (including brainstorming, sketching, implementing, & testing)

2. Curarium as an Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) component for an LTS (e.g, canvas)

   (a) embed individual works into LTS
   (b) embed tray of images/annotations into LTS
   (c) embed works visualization [whole collection or search results] into LTS

3. convert remaining "how we got it" code to much cleaner HTML5 + "the ruby way" styles

4. tighter integration between WAKU (spotlight/story creation web app) via JSON APIs

5. collection extraction from libraries and subsequent importing to Curarium; not just the act but also improving the online process

Technology:

• Ruby on Rails
• JavaScript
• HTML5
• AJAX
• JSON
• PostgreSQL