We want to build an archive of exhibitions, articles, and photos dating back to 2005 and beyond and you can help!
MPLSART.COM was founded in 2005 by Emma Berg. Establishing the site in the early Internet as an calendar of exhibitions happening around the Twin Cities, there was a lot of local history lost when the site closed in 2014. However, with the new owners (Katie and Blaine Garrett) taking over operations later that year and relaunching the site in April 2015, the data was preserved. Blaine went to great lengths to make the articles available, but the events archive, event photos, and listing of galleries needs a ton of work to preserve.
Due to the flash-based nature of the old website, the data is stored in a mixture of random XML files and SQL dumps. To reconnect this data in a meaningful way will take a significant amount of time and energy to ensure accuracy. Similarly, images and photos need to be processed and re-linked to their original context and put in permant storage. Finally, new interfaces need to be built to managed and access the archive information. This will be a big effort, but it is worth it.
This effort will be in addition to the already fulltime work to build and maintain MPLSART.COM. As such, we are looking to raise $15,000 to hire out the rigorous data work as well as cover additional costs associated with the archive. Your donations will help significantly to this end.
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