About Thing 12
Purpose: An introduction to the opportunities and limitations of adding linked data to existing metadata in large-scale digital collections.
Learning Outcomes: Become familiar with the OCLC pilot project on linked data for CONTENTdm collections.
Intended Audience: Beginner
Author: Greta Bahnemann, Minitex
Expected Duration: 45-60 minutes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Getting Started
Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverability: a CONTENTdm Pilot Project was one of a series of linked data pilot projects with OCLC Research. Together these research projects explored how digital collections in libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations could make a meaningful transition into using linked data.
The CONTENTdm Pilot project specifically looked at ways in which CONTENTdm metadata is transformed into linked data, how to curate that data using the same technologies that run Wikidata, and how to use the data to improve end-user experiences in collections using CONTENTdm. The CONTENTdm Linked Data Pilot Project used images and associated metadata from five pilot participants' digital collections.
The CONTENTdm Pilot Project examined the process of data modeling, metadata reconciliation work, and data analysis. The work of the pilot was divided into three phases over the course of one year. Beginning with Phase 1, the pilot began with OCLC harvesting metadata from each participant’s collection and then mapping that metadata into entities. During Phase 1, the pilot aimed to better understand how each participant was using and organizing their metadata. The second phase focused on using the tools OCLC developed for managing metadata in an editing interface. Three tools were developed for the pilot. The Image Annotator tool allowed users to assign annotations to an image focused on both descriptive details in the image and the image’s subject matter. The second tool was the Retriever Tool which allowed users to look for previously created entities in other systems and then transfer that entity into the system the pilot participants used. The Field Analyzer was the third tool developed, and this tool allowed collection administrators to view and better understand how the fields in a given collection were being used (or not used).
Activities
- For an introduction to the pilot, watch a portion of the video from the conference presentation from the 2020 Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference (3:31 - 17:27).
- Read the pilot participants reflections in the OCLC Research report (starting on page 56) to understand the participant’s experiences and their takeaways.
- Optional: For more information on the technical specifications of the project, read a more detailed summary of the pilot project in The Three Phase Project Plan section (pages 13-15) of the OCLC Research Report (PDF, 15.5 MB).
Reflection
Can you identify an advantage of implementing linked data? Can you identify some of the challenges or limitations associated with work like this? Consider sharing your reflection responses in the Comments section at the bottom of the page.
Additional Resources
Bahnemann, Greta, Michael Carroll, Paul Clough, Mario Einaudi, Chatham Ewing, Jeff Mixter, Jason Roy, Holly Tomren, Bruce Washburn, and Elliot Williams. Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverability: A CONTENTdm Pilot Project. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. 2021. https://doi.org/10.25333/fzcv-0851.
Can you identify an advantage of implementing linked data? Can you identify some of the challenges or limitations associated with work like this?