Application Programming Interface for the Collection of the Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum is pleased to announce the release of a new application programming interface (API). The new API will allow for Internet developers and software programmers to query data from the museum, whose Internet repository contains more than 10,000 digital records of art and artifacts from the museum’s collection. The records include information about the artworks as well as digital images. The museum created the API so developers and programmers can more easily create their own applications that feature the museum’s data and images. The data and images are made available to the public under a public license that facilitates reuse, even for commercial purposes, provided that the museum is cited as the source. The API was produced in partnership with Cheshire Software Solutions.

The API and its documentation are available at https://api.thewalters.org

Along with the release of this API, the Walters Art Museum will host its second annual hackathon, Art Bytes II, where technology and creative communities work together to build programs and applications to enhance the museum experience for visitors. A prototype for the API was developed during the first Art Bytes event. The upcoming ArtBytes hackathon will be at the Walters Art Museum Friday, January 24–Sunday, January 26, 2014. Technologists, innovators, scholars and artists will coalesce into teams in the Walters’ Sculpture Court to design and develop their solutions. 

To register, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/art-bytes-at-the-walters-tickets-9534980383
Participants can suggest ideas and to vote on their favorite suggestions at https://artbytes.uservoice.com/forums/164694-general 

About the Walters Museum

The Walters Art Museum is located in downtown Baltimore’s historic Mount Vernon Cultural District at North Charles and Centre Streets. At the time of his death in 1931, museum founder Henry Walters left his entire collection of art – including a legendary collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts that is a national treasure – to the city of Baltimore. Between 1895 and 1931, Walters collected around 730 codices.  Its permanent collection includes ancient art, medieval art and manuscripts, decorative objects, Asian art and Old Master and 19th-century paintings. Wyndham Baltimore Peabody Court is the official hotel of the Walters Art Museum.

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