The YCBA is committed to using technology to make its collections as accessible as possible. Collection data is exposed to the web in both human- and machine-readable formats. The human-readable format, the online collection, allows users to search and view metadata and images on the web as well as download images of objects in the public domain.
We also provide our collections data in machine-readable formats for harvest in bulk and programmatically to support projects that seek to publish them in other platforms and services. Our LIDO XML is available via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).
We have organized our data using the CIDOC CRM (Conceptual Reference Model). The CRM is a powerful and robust ontology that represents our data set precisely to permit semantic integration with other data sets. This resource exists to support scholarly and creative activities, and to facilitate interdisciplinary projects.
Access to, and use of, the museum’s data and services are subject to the YCBA's Open Data and Data Services Terms of Use.
The Yale Center for British Art makes available through its online collection nearly seventy thousand images of works of art in the public domain. These images are compliant with the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) specifications. IIIF is a technology framework that supports enriched image use, including comparing, manipulating, and annotating multiple images within and across collections.
The IIIF Consortium consists of many of the world’s leading libraries, museums, universities, research institutions, and image repositories, who collaborate on sharing uniform and rich access to image-based resources on the web. The YCBA was a founding member of the IIIF Consortium and one of the first museums in the world to commit to delivering IIIF-compliant images.
Canaletto, Warwick Castle (detail), 1748 to 1749
Collections Information Access
The Department of Collections Information Access is responsible for identifying and implementing new web technologies to promote access to, awareness of, and research into the collections at the Center. It coordinates the scholarly cataloguing of the collections, develops and maintains the online collection, and uses technology to allow sharing of collection data as the foundation of an online research environment for the study of British art.
J. M. W. Turner, Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort packet-boat from Rotterdam becalmed (detail), 1818
Contact the Department
Collections Information Access
Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel Street
P.O. Box 208280
New Haven, CT 06520-8280
+1 203 432 8975
+1 203 432 1626 (fax)
ycba.online@yale.edu