This document discusses the benefits of publishing conservation documentation as Linked Open Data. It begins by explaining how Linked Open Data allows for more representative knowledge development by facilitating the automated sharing, summarization, and revision of observations. It then provides examples of how to publish a database as Linked Open Data by matching data to concepts and relationships from controlled vocabularies and ontologies and assigning unique online identifiers. Finally, it addresses problems with publishing free-text data and describes how ambiguities can be resolved by using structured descriptive fields defined in thesauri.

4. Linked Open Data
for conservation documentation
With examples from bookbinding descriptions
Athanasios Velios

5. 1
Why should I care
about Linked Open
Data?

6. Development of knowledge
● Observations

7. Development of knowledge
● Observations
● Summary

8. Development of knowledge
● Observations
● Summary
● Rules

9. Development of knowledge
● Observations
● Summary
● Rules
● New observations

10. Development of knowledge
● Observations
● Summary
● Rules
● New observations
● Revised rules

11. Development of knowledge
● Observations
● Summary
● Rules
● New observations
● Revised rules

12. Professor Nicholas Pickwoad

15. Slow development
● Observations take time
– Few researchers have representative knowledge

16. Slow development
● Observations take time
– Few researchers have representative knowledge
● Publications are difficult to produce

17. Slow development
● Observations take time
– Few researchers have representative knowledge
● Publications are difficult to produce/consume
– They hardly ever contain data

18. Linked Open Data
● Sharing observations
– More representative samples

19. Linked Open Data
● Sharing observations
● Automated summaries
– Still scope to publish commentary

20. Linked Open Data
● Sharing observations
● Automated summaries
● Automated rules
– As reasonable conclusions from summaries

21. Linked Open Data
● Sharing observations
● Automated summaries
● Automated rules
● Automated revisions of rules

28. Linked Open Data
Data is used in applications, but it
was not originally designed for
them

29. http://mes-semantics.com/DBpediaMobile/

37. Linked data example
"http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#lat"
: [ { "type" : "literal", "value" :
54.97483444213867 , "datatype" :
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#float" } ]
,
"http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#long
" : [ { "type" : "literal", "value" :
­1.610236167907715
, "datatype" :
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#float" } ]
,

38. Linked data example
"http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#lat"
: [ { "type" : "literal", "value" :
54.97483444213867 , "datatype" :
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#float" } ] ,
"http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#long"
: [ { "type" : "literal", "value" :
­1.610236167907715
, "datatype" :
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#float" } ] ,

40. Conservation supplier
Paraloid B72 Tube
HMG 14ml
Item Number: SUPARA7210

43. Linked Open Data question
Which low toxicity solvent can dissolve an
adhesive by the specific supplier?

44. 2
How do I publish
my database as
Linked Open Data?

45. World Wide Web Consortium
Tim Berners-Lee (Photograph: Rick Friedman, The Guardian)
Resource Description Framework

48. Resource Description
Framework - RDF
Simplest way to share

49. RDF
Subject
(what do we describe?)

50. RDF
Subject
(what do we describe?)
Predicate
(which property of subject?)

51. RDF
Predicate
(which property of subject?)
Object
(what value of property?)
Subject
(what do we describe?)

52. RDF
has material
(which property of subject?)
Wood
(what value of property?)
MS Arabic 450
(what do we describe?)

53. RDF
has material
(which property of subject?)
Wood
(what value of property?)
MS Arabic 450
(what do we describe?)
ambiguous
labels
label

55. RDF
www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438
ambiguous
explicit
labels
label

57. RDF
www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438
identifiers
ambiguous
label
URIs

59. RDF
www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438
Ligatus
website

61. RDF
www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438
Getty
website

62. RDF
www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438
?

63. ICOM-CIDOC-CRM
P45 consists of (is incorporated in)
Domain: #_E18_Physical_Thing Physical Thing
Range: #_E57_Material Material
Scope note: This property identifies the instances of E57 Materials of
which an instance of E18 Physical Thing is composed.
All physical things consist of physical materials. P45 consists of (is
incorporated in) allows the different Materials to be recorded. P45
consists of (is incorporated in) refers here to observed Material as
opposed to the consumed raw material.
Examples: silver cup 232 (E22) consists of silver (E57)

64. RDF
www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438
CIDOC
website

65. http://collection.britishmuseum.org/id/object/MCN15614
The Girdle Book

67. Man-Made
Object

68. enamel

69. gold

70. serpent

71. Solomon

72. www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/
...#
P45.consists_of
vocab.getty.edu/
aat/300011914
www.ligatus.org.uk/
stcatherines/ms/438

74. Your data is in fields
● Match data with concepts from thesauri

76. Language of Bindings
Thesaurus

77. Your data is in fields
● Match data with concepts from thesauri
● Match data relationships with formal
relationships (ontologies)

80. Your data is in fields
● Match data with concepts from thesauri
● Match data relationships with formal
relationships (ontologies)
● Give unique addresses to each field online

81. Your data is in fields
● Match data with concepts from thesauri
● Match data relationships with formal
relationships (ontologies)
● Give unique addresses to each field online
● Publish online without copyright restrictions

84. Your data is in fields
● Match data with concepts from thesauri
● Match data relationships with formal
relationships (ontologies)
● Give unique addresses to each field online
● Publish online without copyright restrictions
● Existing data models can remain (but a revision
may be a good idea)

85. 3
Problems
with your data

86. Your data is free text

87. Your data is free text
● Bad idea: avoid free text

88. Your data is free text
● Bad idea: avoid free text
● Natural Language Processing
● Use of thesauri
● Attempt to identify concepts and relationships

89. Free-text
The binding has an unsupported sewing structure,
using four stations, with wooden boards attached
to the sewn bookblock by means of sewing thread
only; a textile spine lining extending onto the outer
face of the boards; endbands sewn to the
bookblock and the head and tail edges of the
boards; and metal bosses and triple interlaced
leather clasp-straps laced through the right board
with metal rings that fit over edge pins on the left
board.
Honey, A., and N. Pickwoad. 2010. ‘Learning from the Past: Using Original Techniques to Conserve a Twelfth-century
Illuminated Manuscript and Its Sixteenth-century Greek-style Binding at the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai’. In Conservation
and the Eastern Mediterranean: Contributions to the Istanbul Congress 20-24 September 2010, ed. C. Rozeik, R. Ashok, and D.
Saunders, 56–61. Istanbul, Turkey: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

90. Free-text
The binding has an unsupported sewing structure,
using four stations, with wooden boards attached
to the sewn bookblock by means of sewing
thread only; a textile spine lining extending onto
the outer face of the boards; endbands sewn to
the bookblock and the head and tail edges of the
boards; and metal bosses and triple interlaced
leather clasp-straps laced through the right board
with metal rings that fit over edge pins on the left
board.
Honey, A., and N. Pickwoad. 2010. ‘Learning from the Past: Using Original Techniques to Conserve a Twelfth-century
Illuminated Manuscript and Its Sixteenth-century Greek-style Binding at the Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai’. In Conservation
and the Eastern Mediterranean: Contributions to the Istanbul Congress 20-24 September 2010, ed. C. Rozeik, R. Ashok, and D.
Saunders, 56–61. Istanbul, Turkey: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

91. Ambiguous descriptions
● Compound and/or non descriptive fields

92. Byzantine/Greek
● Raised endbands
● Smooth spine (unsupported)
● Edges cut with the boards
● Straps

93. raised
endbands
raised
endbands

94. smooth
spine
smooth
spine

95. textblock
Cut flush
textblock
Cut flush

96. ssttrraappss

97. Byzantine/Greek

99. Byzantine/Greek
● Raised endbands
● Smooth spine (unsupported)
● Edges cut with the boards
● Straps

101. Byzantine/Greek
● Raised endbands
● Smooth spine (unsupported)
● Edges cut with the boards
● Straps

103. Byzantine/Greek
● Raised endbands
● Smooth spine (unsupported)
● Edges cut with the boards
● Straps

105. Byzantine/Greek
● Raised endbands
● Smooth spine (unsupported)
● Edges cut with the boards
● Straps

106. Ambiguous descriptions
● Compound and/or non descriptive fields
● Uncertain / inaccurate data

107. Ioannes Copus, De fructibus libri
quatuor, Paris: Christian Wechel,
1535

108. SIG

109. !
The time is right

110. The time is right
● Thesauri are being published
● Mature ontologies exist
● Online systems are popular

111. Language of Bindings
Thesaurus

117. ...

118. http://lod-cloud.net/
Linking Open Data cloud diagram 2014,
by Max Schmachtenberg, Christian Bizer, Anja Jentzsch and Richard Cyganiak.

119. a.velios@gmail.com - @a_velios