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

Linked Data Design Issues

• URIs

• LD Design Issues

• Triples

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

Triples• Triples statements

– ‘Things’ have ‘properties’ with ‘values’– Subject – Predicate - Object

• Triples are the basis of RDF

ArchivalResource

Repository Provides Access To

The Rolling Stones

Keith Richards Is Member Of

                                                             

www.bath.ac.uk

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

                                                             

www.bath.ac.uk

How are we creating the Visualisation Prototype?

• Based on researcher use cases

• Data queried from Sparql endpoint

• Use tools such as Simile, Many Eyes, Google Charts

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

                                                             

www.bath.ac.uk

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

Matching Subjects

Matching Places

                                                             

www.bath.ac.uk

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

Scalability / Provenance

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

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

                                                             

www.bath.ac.uk

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

                                                             

www.bath.ac.uk

Linked Data for Repositories?• Repository data can ‘work harder’

• New channels into your data

• New connections with other data sources

• Researchers are more likely to discover sources

• ‘Hidden' collections of repositories become of the Web