Harmonising Performance Event Data: enhancing access and interoperability across performing arts collections

Dr Katherine Dorney, Senior Lecturer in Drama, JRRI Pilot award 2025-26

The aim of this project is to address issues that vex both performance historians and the librarians, archivists, collections managers and curators who work with performing arts collections: how do we accurately and consistently record event data for shows when the materials that record them are organised and catalogued differently depending on the type of media and the collection that houses them? Playbills and programmes are variously catalogued as library items, archival items or collections and as museum objects. The lack of interoperability and data harmonisation across these systems make it difficult for collections staff and researchers to trace the life of a performance, performer, venue, writer and to augment and enhance data about them.

Having worked on both sides of a reading room desk as a collections curator and a researcher, Kate is now collaborating with the curators of Creative Arts, Rare Books and the British Pop Archive and data scientist Tom Flavell to sample data from performing arts collections from the 18th to 20th century to explore:

1. How we can relate event data held in different formats and cataloguing systems together in a meaningful way
2. How we map data across genres, organisations and time periods
3. What the primary fields for a performance database might be
4. What information is useful for collections management and research 
5. What a data standard for, e.g. playbills/programmes might be
6. The feasibility of creating a reliable (in terms of accuracy of data and performance) database that is a) open access (via both a web front-end and an application programming interface) b) sustainable and c) allows users to upload data for review / authentication.