Presentation given to the Archives and Special Collections department of the University of the Arts London on the 16th of January 2019

1. Integration of collection data
A case study from the Oxford
Museums and Libraries
(OXLOD)
Athanasios Velios
a.velios@arts.ac.uk
16 Jan 2019 – LCC

2. Why integrate?

6. Sangreal. Arthur Rackham

7. Larger sample →Larger sample →
Better conclusionsBetter conclusions

8. DataData
integrationintegration

10. OXLOD targets
●
Test workflows and technologies
●
Assess quality of records
– Estimate amount of future work
●
Bring GLAM community together
– Knowledge Transfer

11. OCC
Oxford Conservation
Consortium

12. export
convert
lookup
fields
convert to
XML
Dataset
authority
lists
Mapping - CRM
RDF triples
RDF Visualizer
search interface
OXLOD
data
export
External reconciliation
Automatic
(fast, low quality)
OpenRefine
Manual
(slow, high quality)
upload
export
convert to
XML
convert to
XML

13. Integration principles

14. author collector maker artist person owner

15. author collector maker artist person owner
Integration (one-to-one)

16. author collector maker artist person owner
Integration (one-to-one)

17. List of systems in Oxford
●
EMu (MHS, MNH)
– relational
●
Allegro (Bodleian)
– key/value (line based)
●
TEI (Bodleian)
– XML hierarchical
●
BRAHMS (plant science
+ herbaria)
– relational
●
...
●
Filemaker (PR, Bate)
– spreadsheet
●
Museum+
– Ashmolean
●
...
●
Humanities division dbs
– AHRC project outputs
– Researchers' personal dbs
– Local library catalogues
– ...

18. export
convert
lookup
fields
convert to
XML
Dataset
authority
lists
Mapping - CRM
RDF triples
RDF Visualizer
search interface
OXLOD
data
export
External reconciliation
Automatic
(fast, low quality)
OpenRefine
Manual
(slow, high quality)
upload
export
convert to
XML
convert to
XML

19. author collector maker artist person owner
Integration (one-to-one)

20. Actor
or simply E39
author collector maker artist person owner

21. Actor
or simply E39
author collector maker artist person owner
ontology

22. Ontology
●
Provides properties to link entities
– CIDOC-CRM
– heritage ontology

23. E7 Activity
P16 used specific object
E70 Thing
E39 Actor
P11 had participant
E53 Place
P7 took place at
E52 Time-Span
P4 has time-span

24. Mapping to CIDOC-CRM

25. export
convert
lookup
fields
convert to
XML
Dataset
authority
lists
Mapping - CRM
RDF triples
RDF Visualizer
search interface
OXLOD
data
export
External reconciliation
Automatic
(fast, low quality)
OpenRefine
Manual
(slow, high quality)
upload
export
convert to
XML
convert to
XML

33. Implied relationships
●
lining part of spine

34. Implied relationships
●
lining part of spine
●
spine adhesive has type animal

35. Implied relationships
●
lining part of spine
●
spine adhesive has type animal
●
endband has technique Greek

36. Implied relationships
●
lining part of spine
●
spine adhesive has type animal
●
endband has technique Greek
●
secondary thread has material silk

37. CRM relationships/properties
●
lining part of spine
●
spine adhesive has type animal
●
endband has technique Greek
●
secondary thread has material silk
●
lining crm:P46_forms_part_of spine
●
spine adhesive crm:P2_has_type animal
●
making of endband crm:P32_used_general_technique Greek
●
secondary thread crm:P45_consists_of silk

38. RDF Implementation
(Linked Data)

39. export
convert
lookup
fields
convert to
XML
Dataset
authority
lists
Mapping - CRM
RDF triples
RDF Visualizer
search interface
OXLOD
data
export
External reconciliation
Automatic
(fast, low quality)
OpenRefine
Manual
(slow, high quality)
upload
export
convert to
XML
convert to
XML

40. Linked Data
●
World Wide Web Consortium
– Tim Berners-Lee five star open data
– http://5stardata.info/en/
●
Resource Description Framework
(RDF)

41. Implied relationships
●
lining part of spine
●
spine adhesive has type animal
●
endband has technique Greek
●
secondary thread has material silk

42. Predicate
(which property of subject?)
Resource Description
Framework
Object
(what value of property?)
Subject
(what do we describe?)

43. Predicate
(which property of subject?)
Resource Description
Framework
Object
(what value of property?)
Subject
(what do we describe?)
ParchmentMS. Ashmole 40
Has material

44. Resource Description Framework
zzzzzzxxxxxx
yyyyyy

45. Resource Description Framework
zzzzzzzz, located at:
http://vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011851
xxxxxxx, located at:
https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
catalog/manuscript_344
yyyyyy

46. Resource Description Framework
zzzzzzzz, located at:
http://vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011851
xxxxxxx, located at:
https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
catalog/manuscript_344
yyyyyy, located at
http://www.cidoc-crm.org/
P45_consists_of

47. Linked Data
●
World Wide Web Consortium
– Tim Berners-Lee five star open data
– http://5stardata.info/en/
●
Resource Description Framework
(RDF)
●
Universal Resource Identifiers
(URI)

48. Resource Description Framework
zzzzzzzz, located at:
http://vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011851
xxxxxxx, located at:
https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
catalog/manuscript_344
yyyyyy, located at
http://www.cidoc-crm.org/
P45_consists_of

50. Entity reconciliation
and thesauri

51. Activity
ThingActor
PlacesTime-span
Type Name (Appellation)
isoftype
hasname

52. OXLOD authorities / thesauri
●
Getty AAT, TGN, ULAN
●
VIAF
●
BM thesaurus
●
Geonames
●
China Biographical Data Base (CBDB)
●
China Historical GIS (CHGIS)
●
Paleobiology database (PBDB)
●
International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
●
... many local dataset authority lists

53. export
convert
lookup
fields
convert to
XML
Dataset
authority
lists
Mapping - CRM
RDF triples
RDF Visualizer
search interface
OXLOD
data
export
External reconciliation
Automatic
(fast, low quality)
OpenRefine
Manual
(slow, high quality)
upload
export
convert to
XML
convert to
XML

54. provenance
event x
Giovan Battista
Recanti
crm: P11 had participant
crm:E21 Person
rdf: type
birth of
Giovan Recant
crm: P89 was born
...
crm: P4 has time-span

55. provenance
event x
Giovan Battista
Recanti
crm: P11 had participant
crm:E21 Person
rdf: type
birth of
Giovan Recant
crm: P89 was born
...
crm: P4 has time-span
Giovan Battista
Recanti
Venice
wdt: P19

56. provenance
event x
Giovan Battista
Recanti
crm: P11 had participant
crm:E21 Person
rdf: type
birth of
Giovan Recant
crm: P89 was born
...
crm: P4 has time-span
Giovan Battista
Recanti
Venice
wdt: P19
reconciliation
owl:sameAs

57. provenance
event x
Giovan Battista
Recanti
crm: P11 had participant
crm:E21 Person
rdf: type
birth of
Giovan Recant
crm: P89 was born
...
crm: P4 has time-span
Giovan Battista
Recanti
Venice
wdt: P19
reconciliation
owl:sameAs
wdt: ...
wdt: ...

58. OXLOD demo

59. OXLOD:
'structured
data' enables
accurate/deep search
across collections

60. OXLOD:
'structured
data' in GLAM

61. OXLOD:
one-step
download

62. Pre-OXLOD: 8 steps per result. OXLOD: 1 step for all.

63. Pre-OXLOD: 8 steps per result. OXLOD: 1 step for all.

64. OXLOD:
structured data
consistent
terminology
(above existing data)

65. OXLOD:
enriched data
e.g. links from
Ashmolean...

66. OXLOD:
enriched data
e.g. links to China
Bibliographical
Database
(Harvard)
OXLOD:
enriched data
e.g. links to China
Bibliographical
Database
(Harvard)
OXLOD:
enriched data
e.g. links to China
Biographical
Database
(Harvard)

67. OXLOD:
enriched data
e.g. links from
Ashmolean...

68. OXLOD:
enriched data
e.g. links to China
Historical GIS
(Harvard)

69. OXLOD:
faster search
links to
corresponding
types of objects

70. OXLOD:
cross-collection
linking to
Bodleian

71. OXLOD:
cross-collection
linking to
Bodleian

72. OXLOD:
cross-collection
linking to
Oxford Herbaria

73. OXLOD:
record of species
(type of item)

74. OXLOD:
record of
specimen

75. OXLOD:
efficiency
e.g. export links
work across
collections

76. Findings
●
Policy for URI design
– Versioning
– Stability during iterative mappings
●
Prefer local storage
●
Reconciliation never ends
– Start with local authority lists
– Maintain a institutional authority lists
– Use Wikidata(?) to save effort for extenal
reconciliation
– Has to be done by domain experts

77. Findings
●
Linked Data backend
– Solid research and querying tools
– Mature triple stores
– Licensing enforcing prior to authentication
– Permission management at workflow
●
Linked Data frontend
– Exciting tools
– Easy dataset delivery
– Serendipitous links through searching/browsing

79. OXLOD in numbers

13,280,376 records (triples)

40,869 words of documentation
text

325 minutes of workshop videos

63 workshop participants

26 datasets

10 workshops

80. Parallels with UAL

90. UAL integration
●
Calm
– EAD CRM mapping→
●
Koha
– FRBR LRM mapping→
●
E-prints
– CRMdig, FRBR
●
TMS – eMuseum
– CIDOC-CRM (in touch with Jay Hoffman)

92. ual!