Connections Linked Data Initiative
Pilot Project #1 – Civil War data
What is the plan:
- 3 month project
- Transform, combine data from a sample of records from several different library “silos”
(Starting with Finding Aids, Digitized regimental histories, and some other digital content - Also include data from external sources
- And create some “native” linked data
- Focus on a topic – U.S. Civil War (we may narrow this)
- Give a demonstration of some of the uses and benefits of linked data
- A written report
When: July 1 – Sept. 30
Who’s doing it:
- Laura Akerman (Lead), Kyle Fenton, Bernardo Gomez, Tim Bryson, KIm Durante, Elizabeth Roke, John Wang.
- At least half of Laura’s time; a few hours a week from everyone else.
- Sponsors: John Ellinger, Lars Meyer
Why: assess linked data potential usefulness for us, particularly its potential to:
- Make resources discoverable in more meaningful ways
- Make better connections across our collections (our silos) and to information available on the web
- Enable us to harvest and use data from external sources and allow metadata creation at the “statement level”
- Include linked data in our published web content to make it more findable/available to the world (as well as Emory users)
- Raise consciousness among library staff – demonstrations with our own data
- Replace MARC and/or library-centric XML-based data structures with more flexible RDF, giving use more options for tools
- Fully realize the richness of our controlled vocabularies
- Have a core group “get its feet wet” with linked data,
- Experiment with open source tools for storage, query and display on the web
- Share knowledge and raise consciousness among all library staff by showing them how it could work with our data
Link to the “long form” proposal
— Laura Akerman, 2012-08-15