The document discusses how the American Art Collaborative (AAC) is using Linked Open Data (LOD) to collaborate, reach new audiences, and improve access to art information. The AAC is a consortium of museums that are working together to implement LOD by converting their data to a common format, linking it to external vocabularies, and developing tools to make the data accessible. Their goals are to build a more comprehensive dataset, provide cross-domain searchability, and increase visibility for their collections through open sharing of their linked data.

1. How Linked Open Data
helps Museums
Collaborate, Reach New Audiences,
and Improve Access to art
Information
Eleanor E. Fink
Manager, American Art Collaborative

2. Eleanor E. Fink
Linked Open Data
•A method of publishing structured data so
that it can be interconnected and become
more useful.
•Uses a mark up language called RDF. When
combined with a domain ontology the
relationship between subject, predicate, and
object can be tagged explicitly.
•As a result when you are searching using LOD
you don’t get the “noise” or unrelated
information you get with online searching.

3. Linked Data
facts:
<subject> <predicate> <object>
using W3C standards (RDF)
links between facts from different databases
like links between Web pages
Pedro Szekely and Craig KnoblockUniversity of Southern California
Eleanor E. Fink

4. A Google search for “winslow homer theft”
retrieves documents that users must read to
extract relevant information
information

5. Eleanor E. Fink
American Art Collaborative LOD

6. LOD cloud containing interlinked resources from
a wide variety of sources relevant to locating
stolen or looted cultural property

7. Window to the World of Knowledge

8. Eleanor E. Fink
Tear Down Data Silos
Provide Open Access

9. Eleanor E. Fink

10. AAC
Eleanor E. Fink
Consortium of museums who have come
together to learn about and implement LOD
within their respective museums. AAC is
developing its LOD under a federated model
whereby each AAC member assumes
responsibility for updating and maintaining
its own data.

11. The American Art Collaborative Partners
Amon Carter Museum of American Art,
Archives of American Art, Autry National
Center of the American West, Colby College
Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of
American Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Thomas
Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art,
Indianapolis Museum of Art, National Museum
of Wildlife Art, National Portrait Gallery,
Princeton University Art Museum, Smithsonian
American Art Museum, and Walters Art Gallery
Eleanor E. Fink

12. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Planning Grant
American Art Collaborative Linked Open
Data Initiative (AAC)
Education
Mission Statement
Commitment
Road Map
Eleanor E. Fink

13. IMLS Leadership Grant and a Grant Pending
Road Map over next 12- 21 Months
• Convert data to LOD using the CIDOC CRM
• Link to the Getty Vocabularies as well as
contribute missing names to enhance the
vocabularies
• Implement an API and reader compliant with
the International Image Interoperability
Framework (IIIF) that will allow researchers to
compare and contrast AAC LOD
Eleanor E. Fink

14. • Develop several open source tools
including a link curation tool and IIIF/CRM
translator
• Develop browse demonstration
• Open access
• Publish best practices and lessons learned
Eleanor E. Fink

15. Rationale
Eleanor E. Fink
•Learn together as a collaborative; build a
critical mass to explore and demo value of LOD
•As primary holders of art objects and data AAC
members want to make sure LOD is accurate
•More precise results when searching(Semantic
Web)
•Build richer contexts for inquiry by integrating
data from different sources

16. •Interest in access across the partnership as
well as linking to other LOD nodes: providing
more knowledge than any single institution
•Cross domain searching as a window to the
world of knowledge
•Greater visibility; more outreach
•Collaborative platform potential (curator to
curator)
Eleanor E. Fink

17. CIDOC CRM ontology
82 classes and 263 properties including
relationships
Events
(e.g., creation, production, attribute
assignment),
Immaterial things
(e.g., information objects, appellations,
rights)
Material things
(e.g., actors, physical things, man-made
objects)
Eleanor E. Fink

18. Eleanor E. Fink

19. Slide by Design for Context

20. Eleanor E. Fink
American Art Collaborative LOD

21. THANK YOU