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Chicago Theatre Database: It Begins?

Posted on | May 16, 2008 | No Comments

The CTDB, which was christened here, but started here – or actually here … is crawling out of the primordial soup. Expect a more detailed post from Nick shortly.

What’s happened so far:

  • Nick’s taken my initial data load and created a rudimentary (read: functional but not pretty) web-based architecture for it. It has just over 200 companies and 450 shows in it, as well as the basics for to plug individual artists (including admin folks) into their appropriate roles in both, and the beginnings of a venue table.
  • Over the past few weeks, he and I have both been staring at the data, making suggestions as to additional fields and better ways to arrange the data.
  • Nick’s taken a stab at a front end, which is also pretty rudimentary.
  • We’ve both been in discussion with folks who may have an interest in a project like this, like the League and Bethany Jorgensen of Free and Cheap Theatre fame. The idea is that there are a number of existing sites and services that could benefit from a free, centralized source of information about what’s going on all over town. All very informative, but also very formative.

If I understand Nick correctly, we’re about at the stage where we can use some help. Of course, if you have skills in web design or database design, that would be of huge benefit right now. But just as important at this stage are folks with time at a computer to donate towards a good cause.

There’s far too much data out there for me to gather alone, and while ultimately we want to build a wiki-style database that will encourage individuals and companies to update their own information, that’s a little ways away. Right now we need a few folks who don’t mind rolling up their sleeves a bit and trolling for information, and who won’t mind working with an interface that’s not much to look at right now.

Buy me a beer?

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