I'm not sure if I'm being contrary or determinedly cheerful, but perhaps it
depends where you look for progress? For example, if Europeana are able to
offer linked data services and APIs for contributing institutions, it saves
a lot of individual technical projects. Institutions shouldn't have to know
how to support linked data, but they should know the value of using
services that will create it for them as part of general collections
documentation.
With the benefit of hindsight, I think we've made a few mistakes in how
we've thought and talked about linked data in the past. One has been trying
to work out the technical and vocabulary issues without helping the entire
institution understand why it matters - how does an investment in this help
reduce costs, make it easier to build websites and internal tools, increase
scholarly uses of collections, or get more people through the door or
viewing content online?
We should also be careful to differentiate between the work that
institutions should be doing and work they can support others doing. A lot
of the work of linking collections to narratives and events happens outside
the institution as researchers work on particular paintings, natural
history specimens, manuscripts, etc, and while we can support that by
publishing records online, it's unlikely that many institutions can create
or link to rich contextual records about everything in their collections.
I'd be curious to know how museums respond to scholars who ask about
working with their structured data - do questions like that even reach
technologists? There's lots of interesting work going on in the digital
humanities, but do you hear about it?
I always love hearing new voices on the list, but don't underestimate the
lurkers! Posts go out to lots of people who discuss them without ever
posting to the list.
Cheers, Mia
--------------------------------------------
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http://twitter.com/mia_out
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On 4 February 2016 at 10:16, Mike Lowndes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It's quite disappointing that in the almost 10 years (!) since the
> semantic web think tank, so little progress has been made. But then, part
> of the reason I left the sector at that time was the COMPLETE indifference
> my then institution displayed towards the work I was doing with MCG, and
> the federated meta search tools we had developed internally (which could
> have been developed as a linked data source). It's great to see Richard and
> Mia still holding the candle, and Mike still calling the reality gaps.
>
> >I would be delighted to be told I'm wrong, but my impression is that
> most UK institutions don't really 'get' the open/linked data idea, and
> where they do, they have no idea how to go about supporting or
> implementing
>
> So many institutions still do not 'get it' but is the sector now in a
> place where a minimum rule set or framework for data availability cannot be
> agreed and distributed? Enough to allow you as thought leaders to
> demonstrate what's possible with the data? Basically we should be working
> on that answer to Mike E's point 2.
>
> > I see Linked Data URLs as a means to end: a common frame
> of reference in a shared information space, full of stories. We need to
> work out what concepts we share an interest in, and create Linked Data
> resources for them. They will be people, places, historical events,
> classes of object, /not /the individual objects in our collections.
>
> Interesting, a top down approach! While the context of objects are the
> stories, it's the stories that institutions create and mediate. In fact
> they measure success via the impact of the stories that interpret the
> objects. Not sure engaging stories can emerge from linked data directly.
> But of course part of the vision of the semantic web was to enable people
> to create their own stories through searching/browsing. Linked data around
> objects provide the context and enable us to build new stories, but me it's
> still the objects (digital surrogates, pointers to physical availability)
> that are important, so we can experience them, make unexpected connections
> etc.
>
> Also it's a shame that with the exception of Jamie, it's the same voices
> discussing this as 10 years ago...
>
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