Month: May 2013

Using automation and user feedback for interlinking archives

I work in BBC R&D, where we’re investigating new ways of publishing archive content, using a combination of automatic interlinking and user feedback. The use-case we’re focusing on to validate (or invalidate!) this approach is the BBC World Service archive, and you can see the results of our experiments in this prototype (registrations are currently open – please sign up and let us know what you think). We wrote about the prototype in a bit more details here, here and here.

From various events and conferences I’ve attended over the last year, there seems to be an increasing interest in trying to get the best of both humans and machines to help annotate and interlink large archives, so I would like to propose a session on that topic. This sessions should probably focus on real use-cases and lessons learned, as well as generating new ideas.

Very much looking forward to attending my first LODLAM!

Curation and Linked Data

In April I had an exchange with a couple of colleagues Sue @suelibrarian and Molly @madradish about a conference we have here in Melbourne, Australia, on a biannual basis: VALA (legacy acronym: Victorian Association of Library Automation).  VALA is a digital library and increasingly GLAM conference in Australia where we get to hear about some of the digital development work done.

I’m not sure what the equivalent of an ear worm is, when it comes to ideas, but Molly’s question strikes me as a good session topic and this thought has been niggling away in my mind for quite — some — time.  When I first started tinkering with the idea of what linked open data was going to DO and why any data collecting institutions (such as a GLAM) might DO linked open data – I wrote a paper to get some thoughts down.  Are the GLAMs going to bring a steampunk/neo-Victorian sensibility and aesthetic to Linked Open Data.   

More recently I have had the chance to talk to another colleague Rowan @usyd_dpa about what could be done with some of the “special” collections at University of Sydney Library.

So… I’d like to propose a session on curation and linked data.  A kind of “why are we doing this and who for?” type session.  Many professionals are going to need to make the case to funders and decision-makers to commit resources to transforming data into linked open data – and ideally there are useful principles or methods we can talk through to help make those arguments for support, and outcomes that are going to spin people’s wheels.

  • What linked open data project to do and why?
  • What ontologies to use and why?
  • What datasets to integrate and why?
  • Who will benefit from this and why?

I’ve another conundrum to share with brighter minds than mine – and it involves the role of large library catalogues, e.g. national union or national bibliographies, and smaller special or research library catalogues.  Without going into too much detail I am happy to take the punt and say there are roles for both (of course!), but… that may morph into a broader discussion about linked open data ecosystems (is there such a thing and is this another session?).

Announcing LODLAM Challenge Heat 2 Finalists

From the desk of Rachel Frick, who’s leading the LODLAM Challenge…

It was not easy. For all those who entered, thank you for making this a difficult decision.

After much deliberation and taking into consideration the popular vote, we are pleased to announce the two finalists from Heat 2 of the LODLAM Challenge:

Pundit

Mismuseos.net

Although not a finalist, we want to give special shout-out and an honorable mention to WWI Linked Data.

Nice work, Everyone!

This rounds out the slate of 5 challenge finalists that will be competing head-to-head at the LODLAM Summit June 19-20, 2013 in Montreal.

All finalists have earned travel grants for the trip to Montreal and the chance to win a $2000USD cash prize.

A big thank-you to all the teams who submitted entries. It was great to see such creativity and wide range of ideas.

The LODLAM community rose to the challenge and amazed us.

If you didn’t get a chance to look at the entries – check out the talent in both heats:

Challenge Entries Heat #1

Challenge Entries Heat #2

 

See you in Montreal!

LODLAM Challenge Heat 2 open for voting!

Please spread the word and have fun checking out the video entries!

Many thanks to all of the entrants this year–they’ve put in so much time and care to share their work/ideas/vision and put in for some good-natured international competition.  Who needs the Olympics?

As seen on Twitter:
jonvoss
It’s AWN! Public voting open thru May 9 for #LODLAM Challenge entries! http://bit.ly/159vnxA #OpenGLAM #linkeddata
5/2/13 8:23 AM

Challenge Entry: Mismuseos.net, Art After Technology

Voting closed 9 May, 2013. 229 Liked

Title: Mismuseos.net: Art After Technology (putting cultural data to work).

Team: MisMuseos

 

Short description:

The main goal of Mismuseos.net is to present a case of exploitation of Linked Data for the G.L.A.M. community through innovative end-user applications built on GNOSS, a semantic and social software platform. Mismuseos.net is a free access semantic online solution for end-users that allows them to find and discover museums-related content, and also reach some related external information thanks to the correlation with other datasets. We currently have collections of seven Spanish museums, where users can browse over 15,000 pieces of art and 2,650 artists. The featured applications are: faceted searches, enriched contexts and navigation through graphs. The search engine enables aggregated searches by different facets and summarization of results for each successive search.

Mismuseos.net obtains the information about cultural goods from the Europeana dataset and the online collections of public Spanish Museums. It also extracts and links data from additional datasets of the Linking Open Data cloud, either to supplement information or to generate enriched contexts: Dbpedia, Geonames and Didactalia (a GNOSS project with an index of more than 50,000 open educational resources).
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Challenge entry: NTNU University Library — linked data 2013

Voting closed 9 May, 2013. 9 Liked

Title: NTNU University Library — linked data 2013

Team: NTNU University Library

Short description: We have moved a little way beyond data conversion since starting with linked data in 2009 and are moving on with our fully fledged metadata-driven workflow for archives, special collections and photography. We’re creating a lightweight Web infrastructure that provides a modular approach to doing what libraries need to do; we bring the simple linked data framework, which makes space for real innovation in the data creation and visualization process. Providing simple industry standard tools that IT admins won’t balk at having to maintain, we believe that this is state-of-the-art technology: simple and functional, yet providing easy access to a real-world linked data toolkit.

Meet the Teams: MisMuseos

Team: MisMuseos

Country: Spain

Team Leader: Ricardo Alonso Maturana

Team members: María Elena Alvarado, María Ortega, Susana López-Sola, Rubén Vinagre, María José Ibáñez, Lorena Ruiz Elósegui, Javier Altuzarra, Juan Valer, Kamal Majaiti.

The team brings together expertise in the development of semantic web, data structuring, exploitation of linked data, faceted search engines and algorithms based on semantic technologies.
The team is formed by people from GNOSS company, a small Spanish company which has developed the first social and semantic platform of linked social networks that runs on semantic standards (Linked Data Web). The platform enables automatic data connection, the development of faceted searches based on reasoning and the generation of contexts and advanced recommendation systems (http://www.gnoss.com). GNOSS is the first Spanish company that published its datasets in the Linked Open Data Cloud and CKAN and appears in the LOD cloud since September 2011. GNOSS provides vertical solutions in Culture and Education through cultural and educational graphs of linked communities for connecting content as well as interests.

MAIN GOAL AND DATASETS OF MISMUSEOS.NET
The main goal of Mismuseos.net is to present a case of exploitation of Linked Data for the G.L.A.M. community through innovative end-user applications built on GNOSS. Mismuseos.net is a free access semantic online solution for end-users that allows them to find and discover museums-related content, and also reach some related external information thanks to the correlation with other datasets.
Mismuseos.net uses several datasets: Europeana, Dbpedia, Geonames and Didactalia

Meet the Teams: Data Converters

Team: Data Converters

Country: United States

Team Leader: Sammy Davidson

Team Members: Laurence Skirvin, Jeff Mixter

The LOD-LAM KSU Research Group wants to help libraries, archives, and museums integrate linked data into their information systems. The project submitted to the LOD-LAM challenge focuses on the needs of small to medium sized libraries. Smaller libraries may not have the resources, knowledge, or access to participate in and benefit from linked data. In order to do this, we need to create a recipe for these libraries to publish their own linked data resources, generated from their MARC records. Our solution uses existing open source tools and proposes a prototype to automate the conversion of MARC fields to RDF links. This is one of the many activities of the Research Group. http://lod-lam.slis.kent.edu

Challenge entry: WWI Linked Open Data Project

Voting closed 9 May, 2013. 18 Liked

Title: WWI Linked Open Data Project

Team: WWI LOD

Short description: The main objectives of the WWI LOD project are to enhance access to and create context for online collections of WWI primary sources using a Linked Open Data approach.

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