Chicago Theatre Database: It Begins!

Yes, folks, that's right. It's all happening. Nick's been chronicling the development of what in public database design is called the "backend," and the initial look-and-feel stuff is really exciting.

Now: the data.

We've obviously started with the data I collected over the last year, but time keeps it's petty pace, day after day. The good news is that yours truly has been engaged by Carrie Kaufman to do PerformInk's season preview - including a redesign of the input mechanism and a slightly more proactive reach-out to companies - which will hopefully yield the lion's share of the 08-09 information in one fell swoop.

But we have all of history to contend with here. And that's where you come in!

We're looking for folks - probably those of you who, like me, sit behind desks for a majority of the day - who would like to help us build the database! If you belong to a currently producing company, you can make sure your company's body of work is recorded. Or maybe you were a member of Defiant, or Roadworks, or any number of other dearly departed groups who want to preserve the history of those storied companies. Or maybe you're just an unaffiliated enthusiast (again, like me) who would relish the opportunity to crawl through other companies' sites and drop the data into the CTDB.

I've got a very handy online survey tool that I'm using as the input mechanism. Within the next week or so, I'll have it ready for interested volunteers to use. And I can very quickly alter or create new forms to suit the information you want to input. If you're interested - shoot me an email or leave a comment below with a way to get in touch with you!

Also, if you, for some reason, possess a large amount of Chicago Theatre data in some format or another - there are some out there, I know - please get in touch!