Exhibit: make your data web-accessible

David Karger‘s lab at MIT has developed some neat web software called exhibit, which is designed to let non-ultra-sophisticated individuals publish data in ways that make it immediately accessible and interactive for people encountering it on the web. With exhibit, a scientist with a lot of data doesn’t need to manage a database (mysql, etc.) and program a front end for it. Instead, they can put a data file (as simple as a spreadsheet) and a presentation file (written in basic html) on their web site and they’re done. There are a couple of great examples including an interactive elements table that one of Karger’s undergraduates put together.

Exhibit is a three-tier web application framework written in Javascript, which you can include like you would include Google Maps. The integration with Google maps is quite impressive. One can imagine using it to display geographic or other spatial data. In fact, here’s an exhibit of Danish monthly weather records since 1874. And here’s a great example of exhibit being used to display a bibliography for the MIT haystack group.

Other useful related projects are Timeplot and Timeline for placing interactive time data on a web page.