Digital catalogue of cultural heritage
Digital catalogue of cultural heritage
A cultural heritage cataloguing system modernised, from the old backend to a new one with a Vue interface.
The problem
An organisation catalogues cultural heritage items according to national standards, using a system that over the years had become hard to evolve.
The task was to modernise it without losing anything operators already did every day.
What I built
- 01
New backend
Migration to a backend with typed APIs, meaning a clear contract between server and interface.
- 02
ICCD records
Compiling and managing records according to the cataloguing standard.
- 03
CSV import
Loading existing lists, so that nothing already there has to be retyped.
- 04
Images
Zoom to look at details and a watermark on published images.
- 05
Vue interface
A new working interface for the operators.
My role
Developer at ETT. I worked on the migration, from backend to interface, in collaboration with Scripta, ETT's digitisation line. The work ended in July 2026. The organisation is not named.
Technologies
Python · FastAPI · PostgreSQL · Vue 3 · TypeScript
In a migration the real requirement is “what worked before keeps working”. Typed APIs made it safer to change one piece without breaking another, and CSV import won over operators more than any new feature.
A system to modernise
Tell me what it does today and what it must not stop doing.
Stock photo: “Roman amphora (FindID 824682)”, National Museums Liverpool, Vanessa Oakden, licence CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons). It does not show the project.