Description
The Walters Art Museum is soliciting proposals for a user friendly portal to its online illuminated medieval manuscript repository, thedigitalwalters.org , which includes both Islamic and Western manuscripts. Of the Walters’ 925 illuminated manuscripts, approximately 300 have been fully digitized and catalogued to date, and that number continues to grow.
When the Walters began its manuscript digitization initiative six years ago, we had two primary goals in relation to data creation, storage, and dissemination. 1. It was necessary to store the data in a way that would guarantee long-term preservation in a digital format. 2. It was important to encode the data in a machine-readable format so it could be easily used by any interested party. This resulted in the basic flat-file structure currently on thedigitalwalters.org. Now that we have met these goals with over 300 individual manuscripts, the next step is to take full advantage of the data we have created.
This RFP outlines what the Walters hopes to accomplish, sketches some conceptual ideas for realizing these goals, and invites creative responses that engage the core principles of enjoyment, discovery, and learning: key components of the Walters’ mission. The museum values excellence, teamwork, and collaboration. We seek a creative partnership to complete this project.
The goal of this project is to create a user-friendly, easily searchable tool that will allow users to more easily explore our manuscripts. We seek a developer to assist us with the creation of an extension to thedigitalwalters.org.
Please review complete details at http://thewalters.org/downloads/digital-walters_RFP.pdf
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