This document summarizes a project aimed at improving access to museum collection data for digital humanities researchers through persistent identification. The project assigns persistent URIs to artworks, data, and representations from 10 museum collections. These URIs will improve retrieval and linking of museum data by uniquely identifying cultural heritage objects on the web. By acting as publishers of their own data and linking to external authority sources, museums can ensure their collection information remains stable, accessible, and enriched over time for researchers. The project aims to demonstrate these benefits through a prototype application and help more museums adopt persistent identification practices.

2. ● 2005: a not-for-profit organisation founded by S.M.A.K., Argos, M HKA and
MDD and focussed on the preservation of audiovisual arts
● 2011: ‘Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage’: development and
dissemination of knowledge on and expertise in the digitisation of cultural
heritage
● Focus on all aspects of the digitisation process: creation, cataloguing,
storage, sharing, exchange and reuse of digital heritage content
● Flemish projects: CEST, Scoremodel Digital Sustainability, TRACKS, VIAA,
opencultuurdata.be, Persistent Identification
● European projects: ATHENA, ATHENAplus, PREFORMA, Europeana
Space, DCA, Linked Heritage
● Erfgoedstats | SODA | SIP creator
● packed.be | scart.be | projectcest.be | scoremodel.org | projecttracks.org

3. PERSISTENT
IDENTIFICATION:
MAKING DIGITAL
HUMANITIES RESEARCH
EASIER
Alina Saenko | PACKED vzw
13.06.2014

4. CONTENTS
The problem: How to lead digital humanities
researchers to rich and trustworthy museum data?
The solution: Persistent identification of data as a
technical requirement, making DH research
possible
The project: Museum sector
4

5. THE PROBLEM

6. RESEARCHERS LOOK FOR
- trustworthy data from a source they can refer to, but…
6

7. RESEARCHERS LOOK FOR
- rich machine-readable data, which they can use for
digital analysis and research, but…
7

8. MUSEUMS STRUGGLE
- how to keep online available data up-to-date?
- how to keep online available data
complete/comprehensive?
- how to publish the rich data in a machine-readable
format?
- how to get online available data as high as possible in
the ranking of search engines?
8

9. IS THERE A SOLUTION?
Complex...
But one important technical requirement:
 Museums should gain control over the web address which points
to the information about a work of art in their collection.
 Museum should aim for keeping this web address as persistent
as possible in order to become a trustworthy source of
information and to increase the internet traffic to the web address.
 Museums should consider themselves as online publishers of
their own collection data.
How does that work in practice?
9

10. THE SOLUTION:
PERSISTENT URIS

11. WHAT IS AN URI?
1. make things and data accessible via the web
11
http://www.smak.be/collectie_k
unstenaar.php?la=en&id=&i=0
&t=&tid=&y=&l=b&kunstenaar
_id=1608&kunstwerk_id=1490
http://www.smak.be/collectie_a
fbeeldingen/billing.jpg

12. WHAT IS AN URI?
2. uniquely identify things on the web
12
Johanna Billing:
http://viaf.org/viaf/120189
360

13. WHAT IS AN URI?
3. link different things on the web to each other
13

14. 14

15. PERSISTENT URI’S ENSURE:
 stability and accessibility of published data over time
 high ranking in search engines because they are human-
readable and do not change
 enrichment of data via external authorities because they
are deliberately shared with others
15

16. 16

17. 17

18. HOW TO IMPLEMENT PERSISTENT
URIS FOR WORKS OF ART?
- Use a good syntax
- Distinguish between work, data and representation
- Reuse existing persistent URIs
- Act as publisher
18

19. GOOD SYNTAX:
http://
[domain]/ mandatory
[type object]/ optional
[type document]/ optional
[identification number] mandatory

20. GOOD SYNTAX:
http://
smak.be/collection/
work/
id/
A256

21. NOT A GOOD SYNTAX:
http://www.smak.be/collectie_kunstenaar.php?
la=en&id=&i=0&t=&tid=&y=&l=b&kunstenaar_i
d=1608&kunstwerk_id=1490

22. Distinguish between art work, data and
representation
22
Work
In collection A
Data B
Data A
Data C …
Representation
A

23. ART WORK:
http://
smak.be/collection/
work/
id/
A256

24. DATA: http://
smak.be/collection/
work/
data/
A256

25. REPRESENTATION: http://
smak.be/collection/
work/
representation/
A256

26. WORK, DATA & REPRESENTATION
26
Work
http://
smak.be/collec
tion/work/
id/A256
Data B
http://
museuminzicht.
be/collection/
work/data/
A256
Data A
http://
smak.be/collecti
on/
work/data/
A256
Data C
http://
museuminzicht
.be/collection/
work/data/
A256
…
Representation A
http://
smak.be/collection
/work/representati
on/
A256

27. Reuse existing persistent URIs
Use external authorities for contextual data (institute, artist,
date, object name), because:
 stuff that is not managed by the museum, probably
already has an identifier somewhere else
 they may contain contextual information that the museum
doesn’t have yet
 often available as structured data in an open format
 support of the Semantic Web idea
27

28. ARTIST – JOHANNA BILLING
RKDartists:
http://explore.rkd.nl/explore/ar
tists/26958
Freebase:
https://www.freebase.com
/m/0fn5hr
VIAF:
http://viaf.org/viaf/120189
360

29. INSTITUTION - SMAK
WIKIdata:
http://www.wikidata.org/wi
ki/Q1540707

30. Act as publisher
 Persistency can only be ensured by virtue of the publisher
of the data. Therefore, museums should take up this
responsibility in order to make digital humanities research
based on their data possible.
30

31. THE PROJECT

32. PERSISTENT IDENTIFICATION
PROJECT
 10 fine arts and contemporary art museums -> 10 data sets
 Bottom-up approach
 Deals with a lot of technical and practical questions
 Works with data exports from our partners
 Adds new persistent URIs next to existing data
 Identifies and links 7 entities in 10 data sets: art work, data,
representation, institute, date, artist, object name
32

33. OPEN REFINE
33

34. EXPECTED RESULTS
- show improved retrieval and enrichment in a
demonstrator application
- the new PIDs and the PIDs from external authorities
integrated in the collection data
- future websites with linked and enriched data
(researches get more contextual information, than
museums have)
34

35. 35
Data
Represe
ntation
Data
Art
work
Represe
ntation
Data

36. BENEFITS FOR MUSEUMS
 makes registration and online publication of data easier!
 scientific exposure
 more control and user statistics about the online use of
collection data
 improves accessibility of internal researches for external
audience
Concrete future plans:
 VKC data hub: open data repositories
 LUKAS representations hub: access to images of works of art

37. BENEFITS DIGITAL HUMANITIES
 the data published by museums are high in ranking
(easier to find for researchers)
 behind the links there is trustworthy information
 the data are rich in contextual info
 museum as a switchboard between different data sources

38. THANK YOU!
ALINA@PACKED.BE