About the Dataset Browser

The Dataset Browser is, next to the Research Application, part of the data hub in the Consortium project 'Against Opacity'. The hub is a central access point for researchers and stakeholders from countries of origin for questions regarding colonial collections in the Netherlands. It brings together collections and objects from a colonial context present in Dutch museums and institutions. In this way, the application supports the implementation of the Dutch policy on restitution.

To maintain an overview of the datasets included in the data hub the consortium has constructed this Dataset Browser. The application allows users to search for datasets and view their accessibility rating. What opacity, accessibility and transparency mean, is subject to a lot of discussion, and a continuous conversation within the project.

If you would like to have a look at the roadmap of the project, please click here. Curious to find out what the current state of the Research Application is? Please have a look at the Research Application.

Project

The consortium initiated the project 'Against Opacity' in January 2023. The goal of this project is to make datasets from museums and other institutions more transparent. The datasets must contain data that contributes to the provenance research of objects collected in a colonial context. Opacity/Transparency is considered as any hindrance that limits users in accessing data.

The project has three work programs: (1) building trust, (2) from data opacity to data transparency, and (3) co‐creating knowledge of the past for the present and the future. Each working program is further divided into tasks and activities for which project proposals are submitted to the consortium.

Within the work program 'From Data Opacity to Data Transparency' the main task is the creation of an online research guide and the data hub. This is especially important for collections distributed across different institutions. The data hub will facilitate the matching of datasets across institutions based on categories such as people, events, and geography.

Context

For more information about the context of the project and the broader policies, please visit the Colonial Collections Consortium webiste at https://colonialcollections.nl/.