Curarium is a platform for exploring, analyzing, and making arguments about collections and the objects they comprise. It leverages the power of collections to tell stories by giving users tools ranging from item-level annotations to comprehensive, repository-wide visualizations, allowing them to bring both objects and the communities to which they belong into dialogue with one another.

Curarium isn’t an online exhibition platform, but an environment for pursuing and sharing collections-based research nimbly, intuitively, and iteratively. Browse vast numbers of objects, using an expanding library of visualization tools to generate dynamic data portraits of collections. Annotate records and images, curating them to highlight relationships and juxtapositions. Assemble those records into trays of objects, images, and visualizations to share and work collaboratively with your social circles, and transform trays into published spotlights that unlock the stories and arguments bound up in collections.

Record

A single image from a library collection.

Collection

A full library collection.

Annotation

A note of explanation or comment.

Tray

A personalized bin to save records, annotations, and visualizations that are interesting or pertinent.

Circle

A shared space that is as private or public as the user settings specify. A shared page for teachers and students or research teams to collect and share groups of records, annotations, spotlights, and visualizations.

Circle Tray

A shared bin to save records, annotations, and visualizations that are interesting or pertinent to you and those who are part of your Circle community.

Spotlight

A dynamic multimedia platform for telling the stories that Curarium has helped reveal.

Import

A tool that allows users to simply and quickly upload thousands of JSON files and automatically parse their associated metadata via a user-friendly interface.

About collection

Collect

  1. Find and follow collections of interest to you
  2. OR Import your own collection* of up to 30,000 records in just 5 minutes.
    *Requires JSON files and offsite hosting
About explore

Explore

  1. Within any collection, browse, filter, search, and generate visualizations.
  2. Annotate records and make additions to their metadata.
  3. Save individual records, groups of records, or visualizations to a tray.
  4. Categorize what you save using as many trays as you need.
About spotlight

Spotlight

  1. Tell stories by pulling directly from the content you’ve collected in your trays.
  2. Publish, share, and export your spotlights.
About annotation

Annotate

  1. Users can annotate records in two ways. If an annotation is valuable to the general public, annotationscan be created by users on the record page directly.
  2. Viewers of records can choose to view annotations or hide them.
  3. If an annotation is of interest specifically to a researcher and an argument in development, annotations will be able (in the near future) to be made directly in the Spotlight editor.
About user

User

  1. Edit your collections, trays, and spotlights.
  2. Track collections and users you follow.
  3. Start or join user circles to share and collaborate on work within a specified collection or set of collections.
  4. From your circle’s splash page, access circle-specific collections; check the newsfeed to find updated circle annotations, social trays, and spotlights; post comments to your circle members.
  5. When you explore any collections in your circles, you can use a social tray to work in real time with circle members to collect and order records.

To report a bug or suggestion, please:

  • visit the Curarium Bug Tracker
  • choose a Tracker: Task or Bug
  • fill in the Subject and Description fields (the rest of the fields can be left blank but feel free to upload a screenshot if you think it will help our team understand the issue)
  • click Create to send us your feedback

We would also be happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have at: curarium@metalab.harvard.edu