This document discusses linking maritime historical data from different datasets using semantic web technologies. It describes integrating 25 Dutch maritime datasets that contain heterogeneous data on ships, sailors, and voyages. Named entities and events are extracted from historical newspaper articles and linked to the maritime data to provide additional context. Over 30 million RDF triples are created to represent the integrated data, including 180,000 links between maritime records and historical newspapers. The linked data allows for new visualizations, queries, and exploration of the digital historical resources.

1. Dutch Ships and
Sailors
Victor de Boer - v.de.boer@vu.nl
Digitale historische kranten als big data 24-3-2015
DIVE

2. Dutch Ships and Sailors
Victor de Boer, Matthias van Rossum, Jur Leinenga, Rik Hoekstra
With input from Andrea Bravo Balado and Robin Ponstein
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision / VU University Amsterdam
v.de.boer@vu.nl

3. The Problem:
((Maritime) historical) data is not integrated
25+ Maritime datasets; Heterogeneous

4. The solution
Well, Linked Data obviously!

5. KB Delpher
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping (DAS) –
Voyages (Huygens ING)
“VOC Opvarenden”
Mustering and payroll information (DANS Easy)
Dutch Ships and Sailors
Jur Leinenga (Huygens ING)
Monsterrollen Noordelijke provincies
Matthias van Rossum (VU-hist)
Generale Zeemonsterrollen VOC

6. DAS
GZMVOC
MDB
VOCOPV
Begunstig
den
VOCOPV
Soldijboek
en
PROV
AAT
VOCOPV
Opvaren
den
foaf
owl:sameAs
dss:hasKBLink
rdfs:subClassOf,
rdfs:subPropertyOf
dss:DAS link
skos :exactMatch

7. Links to original scans

8. Linking to Historical newspapers
• Use ML to detect links
between ships and historical
newspaper articles (delpher.nl)
– Features: ship name, time
intervals, captain’s names, ship
type, named entities, keywords,
background knowledge
• 179,120 links
- Andrea Bravo Balado

9. Example
[HARLINGEN, 24 October.] . «et gestrande
Zweedsche schip , waarvan wij ons vorig no.
melding maakten , is door de 'eepboot van hier
afgebragt en hier binnengede u BiJ die
gelegenheid werd ons medegeeeid, dat nog vier
vaartuigen op Terschelling aren gestrand.
Tevens is het berigt ontvan°e > dat het hier
behoorende schoonerschip Transit, kapitein
Schaap, in de Noordzee is gezonken, nadat het
achterschip was weggeslagen ; een ligtmatroos
verloor daarbij het leven. Mede zijn hier drie
vreemde schepen met meer en minder zware
averij binnengeloopen.
Spoiler alert! It sank in the North Sea.

10. Data analysis and visualisation

11. Results
• 30 Million RDF triples of integrated maritime historical data
– 180.000 links to KB newspapers (Background information on arrivals, departures,
cargo, other events )
– New visualisations and query options
– Conversion process documented to allow for additional datasets (current work)
– Online RDF triple store at Huygens ING
• Linked Data principles are a great fit to digital history requirements
– Heterogeneous models/datasets, light-weight reusable integration
– Multiple levels of normalisation, through separate named graphs (including
links to newspapers)
– SW Provenance matches Historical Provenance
• Watch out when you sail your Schooner into the North Sea

12. DIVE INTO THE EVENT-BASED
BROWSING OF LINKED HISTORICALMEDIA
VICTORDEBOER,JOHANOOMEN,OANAINEL,LORAAROYO,
ELCO VANSTAVEREN,WERNERHELMICHANDDENNISDEBEURS

13. DIGITAL HUMANITIES
RESEARCHERS
MediaresearcherLarsArveRøsslandoftheUniversityofBergen.(Photo:AndreasR.Graven)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drainrat/14779928998/
EXPLORATIVE
SEARCH
Erp, M. van; Oomen, J.; Segers, R.; Akker, C. van de; Aroyo, L.; Jacobs, G.; Legêne, S; Meij, L. van der; Ossenbruggen, J.R. van; Schreiber,
G. Automatic Heritage Metadata Enrichment with Historic Events Museums and the Web 2011
http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2011/papers/automatic_heritage_metadata_enrichment_with_hi

14. DATA: OPENIMAGES.EU
Open videos Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
3000, mostly news broadcasts

15. DATA: DELPHER.NL
Scans of Radio bulletins (hand annotated)
• 1937 – 1984
• 1.5 Million OCR’ed and NErred

16. ENTITY EXTRACTION
CROWDTRUTH.ORG
ENTITY EXTRACTION
EVENTS CROWDSOURCING AND LINKING TO
CONCEPTS THROUGH CROWDTRUTH.ORG
SEGMENTATION & KEYFRAMES
LINKING EVENTS AND
CONCEPTS TO KEYFRAMES

17. MEDIA OBJECTS LINKED THROUGH
EXTRACTED ENTITIES
DIVE:MEDIA OBJECT SEM:EVENT
SEM:PLACE
SEM:TIME
SEM:ACTOR
SKOS:CONCEPT
OA:ANNOTATION
LINKS TO EUROPEANA
LINKS TO DBPEDIA
SIMPLE EVENT MODEL (SEM),
OPENANNOTATION (OA) AND SKOS

18. INFINITY OF
EXPLORATION
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mibuchat/2774251415https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjcarson/245171885
DIGITAL
SUBMARINE UI

19. DEMO
DIVE.BEELDENGELUID.NL

20. THANK YOU
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robysaltori/
DUTCHSHIPSANDSAILORS.NL
DIVE.BEELDENGELUID.NL
v.de.boer@vu.nl

21. http://semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/dss/user/query
# Give me all records that have both a link to an original scan and one to a KB news
article, that have an associated ship whose shiptype is a subtype of "kustvaarders".
prefix dss: <http://purl.org/collections/nl/dss/>
prefix mdb: <http://purl.org/collections/nl/dss/mdb/>
SELECT * WHERE {
?record dss:hasOriginalScan ?scan.
?record dss:has_kb_link ?kblink.
?record mdb:schip ?schip.
?schip dss:has_shiptype ?shiptype.
?shiptype skos:exactMatch ?em.
?em skos:broader ?b.
}
LIMIT 50