Overview of the project to convert all of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection data to Linked Open Data. The Museum collaborated with the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) and Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California to develop tools for easier LOD conversion and linking.

1. Linking the
Smithsonian American Art Museum
to the Cloud
March, 2014
Georgina Goodlander
Smithsonian American Art Museum
@bathlander | ggoodlander@idahofallsarts.org

2. The Need
• Museum data exists in silos, is not very findable on the web
• It is difficult for users to make connections across collections
• Other sources often have more information than we do
• Web pages are machine processable, but not machine readable

3. What we see:

4. What the computer sees:
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
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blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

5. Related data across collections
ima:SaamPerson_John_Singer_Sargent
a saam:SaamPerson ;
dct:date "1856-1925" ;
foaf:name "John Singer Sargent"
.
saam:SaamPerson_4253
a saam:SaamPerson ;
saam:associatedPlace
saam:SaamPlace_1357324439768t1r13950_0,
saam:SaamPlace_1357324439768t1r13951_0 ;
saam:constituentId "4253" ;
rdaGr2:biographicalInformation
“Painter. Sargent traveled …" ;
rdaGr2:dateAssociatedWithThePerson "1990-10-1”, "1995-5-8" ;
rdaGr2:dateOfBirth "1856-1-12" ;
rdaGr2:dateOfDeath "1925-4-15" ;
rdaGr2:placeOfBirth saam:SaamPlace_1357324439768t1r13952_0 ;
rdaGr2:placeOfDeath saam:SaamPlace_1357324439768t1r13953_0 ;
skos:altLabel "John S. Sargent" ;
skos:prefLabel "John Singer Sargent" .
cb:SaamPerson_John_Singer_Sargent
a saam:SaamPerson ;
ont0:dateOfBirth "1879", "1885" ;
ont0:dateOfDeath "1925" ;
skos:prefLabel "John Singer Sargent" .
met:SaamPerson_John_Singer_Sargent
a saam:SaamPerson ;
ont0:placeOfResidence
"North and Central America",
"United States" ;
foaf:name "John Singer Sargent" .
dallas:SaamPerson_John_Singer_Sargent
a saam:SaamPerson ;
ont0:dateOfBirth "1856" ;
ont0:dateOfDeath "1925" ;
foaf:name "John Singer Sargent" .

6. The Solution: Linked Open Data
• Linked: Links between facts from different providers
• Open: Use an open license so that everyone can use the data
• Data: Use W3C standards (RDF) to describe the data in triples
(<subject> <predicate> <object>)
• <js-sargent> <is-a> <person>
• <person> <name> “John Singer Sargent”
• <person> <born-in> <city>
• <city> <name> “Florence”

7. The Project
• Working with the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) and Department
of Computer Science at the University of Southern California to
develop tools for LOD conversion
• Contribute data to the Linked Open Data cloud:
• 44,000 artworks
• 8,000 artists
• 15,000 places
• Leverage the data to build applications for the public, scholars, and
educators
• Share the tools and the process with other museums and cultural
institutions

8. The Process
• Select LOD vocabularies and create ontology

9. The Process
• Map the data to RDF using USC’s data conversion tool (KARMA)

10. The Process
• Use USC tools for linking museum data to other datasets

11. The Process
• Publish dataset and all verified links, create web application to
browse the contents of the SPARQL endpoint
• https://github.com/InformationIntegrationGroup/saam-lod/wiki

12. The Process
• Insert links on our website
• http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/

13. The Dream?
• A tool for curating stories using links:
• http://prezi.com/htrvh2jrcsio/curating-stories-with-linked-open-data

14. American Art Collaborative
http://americanartcollaborative.org
• Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
• Dallas Museum of Art (DMA)
• Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art
• National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
• National Museum of Wildlife Art
• Autry National Center
• Princeton University Art Museum
ISI’s tools: http://isi.edu/integration/karma