locah project show and tell

www.bath.ac.uk

UKOLN is supported by:

LOCAH Project Show and Tell

2nd August 2011

e-Research South Linked Data Workshop,

Oxford e-Research Centre, Oxford, UK

Adrian Stevenson

LOCAH Project Manager

www.bath.ac.uk

LOCAH Project• Linked Open Copac and Archives Hub• Funded by #JiscEXPO 2/10 ‘Expose’ call

– 1 year project. Started August 2010

• Partners & Consultants:– UKOLN – Adrian Stevenson, Julian Cheal– Mimas – Jane Stevenson, Bethan Ruddock, Yogesh

Patel– Eduserv – Pete Johnston– Talis – Leigh Dodds, Tim Hodson– OCLC - Ralph LeVan, Thom Hickey– Ed Summers

• http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/locah/

www.bath.ac.uk

Archives Hub and Copac• UK National Data Services based at Mimas• Archives Hub is an aggregation of archival

descriptions from archive repositories across the UK– http://archiveshub.ac.uk

• Copac provides access to the merged library catalogues of libraries throughout the UK, including all national libraries– http://copac.ac.uk

www.bath.ac.uk

What is LOCAH Doing?

• Part 1: Exposing Archives Hub & Copac data as Linked Data

• Part 2: Creating a prototype visualisation

• Part 3: Reporting on opportunities and barriers

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We’re Linking Data!

• If something is identified, it can be linked to• We take items from one dataset and link

them to items from other datasets

BBCBBCVIAFVIAF

DBPediaDBPediaArchives

HubArchives

Hub

CopacCopac

GeoNamesGeoNames

www.bath.ac.uk

Enhancing our data• Already have some links:

– Time - reference.data.gov.uk URIs– Location - UK Postcodes URIs and Ordnance

Survey URIs – Names - Virtual International Authority File

• Matches and links widely-used authority files - http://viaf.org/

– Names - DBPedia

• Also looking at:– Subjects - Library Congress Subject Headings and

DBPedia

http://data.archiveshub.ac.uk/

http://data.archiveshub.ac.uk/id/person/nra/webbmarthabeatrice1858-1943socialreformer

Visualisation Prototype• Using Timemap –

– Googlemaps and Simile

– http://code.google.com/p/timemap/

• Early stages with this• Will give location and

‘extent’ of archive.• Will link through to

Archives Hub

Linking Lives Project

• Starts September 2011• Builds on Locah work

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BBC Music

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The Key Benefit of Linked Data (?)

• Mashups work against a fixed set of data sources

• Hand crafted by humans

• Don’t integrate well

• Linked Data promises an unbound global data space

• Easy dataset integration

• Generic ‘mesh-up’ tools

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Some challenges

Matching Subjects

Matching Places

Matching Places

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Sustainability

• Can you rely on data sources long-term?

• Ed Summers at the Library of Congress createdhttp://lcsh.info

• Linked Data interface for LOC subject headings

• People started using it

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Library of Congress Subject Headings

Scalability / Provenance

Example by Bradley Allen, Elsevier at LOD LAM Summit, SF, USA

• Same issue with attribution• Solutions: Named graphs? Quads? • Best Practice

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Data Modelling• Complexity

– Archival description is hierarchical and multi-level

• Dirty Data

Licensing• ‘Ownership’ of data• Hard to track attribution• CC0 for Archives Hub and Copac data

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Is Linked Data the Way?

• Enables ‘straightforward’ integration of wide variety of data sources

• Research data can ‘work harder’• New channels into your data• Researchers are more likely to discover

sources • ‘Hidden' research collections of become of

the Web

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– What constitutes data worth linking to?– How do you find datasets suitable for

interlinking? – How do I make my dataset worth linking to?– How do I encourage others to link to my data?– What is the added value of links? – How do you determine the quality of a link?

Questions if you’ve bought in

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Attribution and CC License

• Sections of this presentation adapted from materials created by other members of the LOCAH Project

• This presentation available under creative commons Non Commercial-Share Alike:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/