DANS is an institute of KNAW and NWO
From “me and my database” to linked data resources in the humanities
Peter Doorn - Director, Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS); coordinator, “Preparing DARIAH” (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities)
Presentation for European Science Foundation (ESF) Standing Committee for the Humanities (SCH) Strategic Workshop on research communities and research infrastructures in the Humanities Strasbourg – France, 29-30 October 2010, Theme 5: Integrating extant resources
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Contents
− Data silos− Preserving silos− 1980s & 1990s: me & my database− Last decade: linking resources in collaboratories,
portals, etc.− Infrastructures needed to support this− The next phase: linked open data?
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Thousands of data silos in the humanities
Historical databases Archaeological GIS
Linguistic corpora
Arts image collectionsLiterary text bases
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Thousands of data silos in the humanities
Historical databases Archaeological GIS
Linguistic corpora
Arts image collectionsLiterary text bases
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Digital preservation is necessary!
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Digital preservation is no luxury!
Storing the tapes of the population census 1973 of SudanCourtesy: Robert McCaa, IPUMS
Data Archiving and Networked Services
1980s and 1990s: Me & my data
Me & my database in History and Computing:− This is the source I use− This is the software I used− This is how I put my source in the database
Me & my GIS in Archaeological Computing:− These are my finds− This is how I entered them in a GIS− Look at the nice maps I can make!
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Since the last decade: let’s open up and connect the silos!
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Collaboratories
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Services:
ADS Archive – W/SADS ArchSearch – W/SCIMEC NMR (TB z39.50)DANS, EASY – OAI PMHRCAHMS – W/SKUAS NMR – W/S
ADS ARENA II Technical Demonstrator
ARENA portal
Data Archiving and Networked Services
14Jan Luiten van Zanden
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Gapminder to visualize world inequality
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Digital Collaboratory for Cultural Dendrochronology
Esther Jansma
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Dendrochronology: the science or technique of dating events, environmental change, and archaeological artifacts by using the characteristic patterns of annual growth rings in timber and tree trunks
Applications in the humanities:
• Dating of objects (when was the tree lumbered?)
• Origin of objects (where did the wood come from?)
• Studies of wood technology
• Studies about the ways ancient landscapes were exploited
Spin-offs: knowledge about economy, technology and landscape/environmental change in the past
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Data Archiving and Networked Services
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Data collection RING
Data collections of ‘old wood’ for The Netherlands
− Private sector in The Netherlands (6000 BC-present): • > 2000 research projects• > 20.000 measurement series at 13.000 trees (60%
dated)
− Private sector and universities in Germany:• Archaeology: e.g. Dorestad• Cultural heritage: many objects from The Netherlands
and Flanders• Architectural history: North and East NL, Amsterdam
Data Archiving and Networked Services
DCCD architecture
Data layer
Controlled vocabulary
User layer
Depositors control access to their data
Persistent storage in DANS Electronic Archiving System
Data Archiving and Networked Services
5 Criteria16 guidelines
The research data:− can be found on the Internet− are accessible (clear rights
and licenses)− are in a usable format− are reliable− can be referred to (persistent
identifier)
www.datasealofapproval.org
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Infrastructures are required to support and maintain the collaborative efforts
− Services need to be sustainable− Therefore they need to be generic and re-usable
DARIAH, the emerging Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities aims to “link and provide access to distributed digital source materials of many kinds”
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Starting infrastructure project of Holocaust archives and researchers in collaboration with DARIAH
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Infrastructure proposals in preparation
Calls − INFRA-2011-1.1.3. Integrating Digital Archives and
Resources for Research on Medieval and Modern European History
− INFRA-2011-1.1.4. Integrating Archives for research on Contemporary European Social History
Data Archiving and Networked Services
The next phase
− Linking different kinds of information
− Linked open data: semantic web technologies
Data Archiving and Networked Services
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Four principles of linked data (T.B.L.)
1. Use URIs to identify things2. Use HTTP URIs so that these things can be referred to
and looked up ("dereferenced") by people and user agents
3. Provide useful information about the thing when its URI is dereferenced, using standard formats such as RDF/XML
4. Include links to other, related URIs in the exposed data to improve discovery of other related information on the Web
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Linked Library Cloud mid-2010
Ross Singer, Code4Lib2010 - http://code4lib.org/conference/2010/singer
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Examples of Linked Data projects
−UK: http://data.gov.uk/−US: http://www.data.gov/−NL: http://politicalmashup.nl/
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Linked data and Open Annotations in Alfalab project
TextLab, SpaceLab, LifeLab
Data Archiving and Networked Services
Finally, an integrated data infrastructure!
Yeah. Now if I can just remember where I put that file...