Museum Data Service is delighted to announce that Dr Mia Ridge will become Head of Service for this transformative initiative which is connecting together all the object records across the UK’s museums, making them easier to search and to re-use.
Dr Ridge is the British Library’s Digital Curator for Western Heritage Collections. Part of the Digital Research team, she leads projects and provides advice and training on computational research, AI / machine learning and crowdsourcing with cultural collections.
Dr Ridge has published and presented widely, participating in many international collaborations. In July 2024 she was appointed Secretary to the Executive Board of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations. She joins the Museum Data Service this month on a secondment from the British Library.
It is a year and a half since Museum Data Service (MDS) was launched at the headquarters of Bloomberg Philanthropies. This ambitious initiative, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and now by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), provides a platform to bring together over the next ten years over 100 million object records from 1,750 UK accredited museums and other collections. It is unlocking an invaluable source of knowledge for researchers, educators, curators, and content developers and will provide the definitive account of what is held across the UK’s museum sector. MDS currently shows 7.4 million object records from 207 accredited museums.
By creating a single, unified platform, MDS enables museums to easily upload and securely manage their object records, whilst making it easy for users to search and retrieve records across multiple collections and diverse databases. This service is designed to be accessible for all museums, regardless of size, providing an inclusive and sustainable way to share and preserve the UK’s cultural heritage.
While MDS is primarily designed for institutional use, its impact will be far-reaching. Researchers in digital humanities now have unprecedented access to large-scale data sets; museum curators are finding it easier to research objects for exhibitions; and developers can start to transform raw data into engaging content for the general public. MDS also serves as a critical backup resource, especially for smaller collections that may lack robust digital infrastructures.
Museum Data Service is a collaboration between Art UK, Collections Trust, and the University of Leicester’s Institute for Digital Culture. Art UK was MDS’s first institutional user with MDS enabling the charity to triple the number of artworks on its platform in 14 months. A second major institutional user is the South West Collections Explorer which aggregates collections online from across the South West of England and was launched in late 2025. Most recently, Collections Trust has launched Find an Object, the museum sector’s site for advertising disposals from collections. Find an Object imports object information from MDS, making disposals easier than ever before.
Dr Katie Eagleton, University Librarian and Director of Collections and Museums at the University of St Andrews, and Chair of Museum Data Service, said: ‘Museum Data Service continues to go from strength to strength – and we are delighted that Dr Mia Ridge is joining MDS as our new Head of Service. MDS just passed 7 million records contributed by museums large and small, and Dr Ridge will lead our work over the next few years to build on that momentum, dramatically grow museum sector participation, as well as to develop new research collaborations as well as to develop new research collaborations.’
Professor Ross Parry, Director of the Institute for Digital Culture, said: ‘Dr Mia Ridge brings an international reputation and substantial experience of working with the richness and complexity of museum collections data. In her scholarship and in her professional practice, she has shown a profound understanding of what’s possible when this data can be linked and shared. The founding partners of MDS – Art UK, Collections Trust, and The University of Leicester – are delighted to welcome Mia to this leadership role, and are excited by where she can now help take this landmark Service.’
Dr Mia Ridge, said: ‘It’s a privilege to take on the leadership of the Museum Data Service. I’m on record as a fan of the MDS – a service so simple and compelling in its vision to connect and share museum records across the UK that it’s hard to believe it hasn’t always existed.
‘I’m thrilled to work with the incredible partnership of Art UK, Collections Trust and the University of Leicester’s Institute for Digital Culture to help deliver vital infrastructure for practitioners, researchers and anyone interested in a single point of access to museum data.
‘This appointment complements my work at the British Library, where I’ve had incredible opportunities to lead projects at the cutting edge of digital scholarship and collaborate with international experts in digital cultural heritage and the digital humanities. It also brings me back to my roots as a museum technologist advocating for open and accessible cultural data, and designing platforms for digital participation.
‘I’m grateful to the Board of the Museum Data Service, and in particular Kevin Gosling and Arran Rees for their work developing and launching the MDS. By reaching a milestone 7 million records so quickly, the MDS has already proven that it meets a vital need for the sector. I’m excited to help it grow and adapt in collaboration with museums across the country.’
Neil Fitzgerald Head of Digital Research at the British Library, said ‘We are delighted by the news of Dr Mia Ridge’s appointment as Head of Service at Museum Data Service. As the UK’s national library, the British Library is committed to using digital scholarship to strengthen research capabilities. The knowledge exchange between MDS and the Library through Dr Ridge’s expertise will further the development of the museum sector by expanding what’s possible when we scale access to information. We look forward to seeing how Dr Ridge will strengthen the capabilities of museum collection data during this secondment and thank MDS and its collaborative partners, Art UK, Collections Trust and the University of Leicester’s Institute for Digital Culture, for the opportunity.’
For press interviews, information or images please contact Andrew Ellis, andrew.ellis@artuk.org
About Mia Ridge
Dr Mia Ridge is one of the UK’s leading figures in digital cultural heritage. Currently Mia is the Digital Curator for Western Heritage Collections at the British Library, where she leads innovative work on computational research methods, crowdsourcing, and digital public participation. With an international career spanning national libraries and museums in the UK and state libraries and museums in Australia, she has a proven track record transforming how museums and libraries mobilise their collections as data.
At the Science Museum she pioneered the release of over 200,000 collections records as open data, and ran the world’s first museum hackathon. She has advised institutions including London Museum, Birmingham Museums Trust, and Art UK on participatory design and engagement with collections.
She was Co-Investigator on Living with Machines (2018–23), a flagship £9.2m AHRC/UKRI project between the British Library and the Alan Turing Institute – one of the largest digital humanities initiatives ever funded in the UK. Mia built and led its public engagement programme, rallying over 5,500 volunteers to analyse historical sources at scale, and co-curating the resulting exhibition at Leeds City Museum. She also secured and led her own AHRC grant as Principal Investigator for the Collective Wisdom project, co-producing the definitive handbook on crowdsourcing in cultural heritage.
A sought-after keynote speaker with over 25 international appearances, Mia holds a PhD in Digital Humanities from the (Open University) and an MSc in Human-Computer Interaction from (City, University of London. She currently serves as Executive Board Secretary of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations and sits on the LIBER AI Taskforce. She chaired the Museums Computer Group for six years and is widely credited with shaping the field of crowdsourcing in the cultural heritage sector.