Wikidata:Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data

Presentation about this project during the GLAM-WIKI 2015 conference (April 2015)

Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele (Q2480921) by Jan van Eyck (Q102272), Groeningemuseum (Q1948674)

Portrait of Marguerite van Mons (Q2188296) by Théo van Rysselberghe (Q671883), Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK) (Q2365880)

In this project, a group of Flemish museums and art collections publish metadata of their art collections (estimated: 30,000 artworks in total) on Wikidata, and then make this dataset available as Linked Open Data (LOD) (?).

All the artworks have persistent identifiers (?).

In this way, the information about the artworks can be enriched on Wikidata. This project is a first encounter of the participating art collections with the community of Wikimedia volunteers.

The project partners investigate whether the free infrastructure, provided by Wikidata, can be used by museums:

• to realize their open data strategies,
• and to publish their collection data as Linked Open Data without needing high IT investments.

The project's Dutch title is Linked Open Data publicatie met Wikidata.

Earlier, related projects

Linked Open Data publicatie met Wikidata is a follow-up to several earlier projects:

1. Persistente Identificatie (2013-2014) (information in Dutch) investigated if persistent URIs would simplify the maintenance and information exchange of artworks in 10 different Flemish art databases.
2. Persistente identificatie en open cultuur data (2014-2015) (information in Dutch). In this project, persistent identifiers for more than 34,000 artworks from seven Flemish museums were made operational.

It is also closely associated with opencultuurdata.be.

Partners and contact info

Co-ordination: PACKED vzw

PACKED vzw is the Flemish Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage.

• Bert Lemmens - bert@packed.be
• Barbara Dierickx - barbara@packed.be
• Alina Saenko - alina@packed.be

Wikimedians

• Sandra Fauconnier (User:Spinster), advisor/producer, workshops, reports, community liaison (freelancer)
• User:Multichill, advisor/uploader (volunteer)
• Wikimedia Belgium: User:MADe, supervision
• Romaine, support and organisation (in and beyond Wikimedia Belgium) - romainewikimedia.be

Flemish art collections

					Artworks on Wikidata	Visualisations and statistics
Vlaamse Kunst Collectie / Flemish Art Collection (partnership of the three main museums of fine arts in Flanders)		Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen	Antwerp	Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (Q1471477)    Category on Wikimedia Commons	7,798 artworks in original dataset. SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
		Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent	Ghent	Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK) (Q2365880)    Category on Wikimedia Commons	6,973 artworks in original dataset. SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
		Groeningemuseum Brugge	Brugge	Groeningemuseum (Q1948674)    Category on Wikimedia Commons	2,858 artworks in original dataset. SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list Groeningemuseum on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
Vlaamse Kunst Collectie / Flemish Art Collection ('virtual' collection)				Vlaamse Kunstcollectie (VKC) (Q2542010)	2,537 artworks in dataset. Works from this collection on Wikidata: SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list Flemish Art Collection on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
Contemporary Art Heritage Flanders (partnership of four contemporary art museums in Flanders)		Mu.ZEE	Ostend	Mu.ZEE - Kunstmuseum aan Zee (Q1928672)    Category on Wikimedia Commons	3,979 artworks in dataset. Works from this collection on Wikidata: SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list Mu.ZEE on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
		S.M.A.K.	Ghent	Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Q1540707)    Category on Wikimedia Commons	2,579 artworks in dataset. Works from this collection on Wikidata: SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list S.M.A.K. on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap				Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap (Q2173225)	1,933 artworks in dataset. Works from this collection on Wikidata: SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics
M - Museum Leuven		M - Museum Leuven	Leuven	M Leuven (Q2362660)    Category on Wikimedia Commons	3,137 (notable) artworks in dataset. Works from this collection on Wikidata: SPARQL query Petscan query Dynamic list M - Museum Leuven on Crotos	Visualisations and statistics

Project results

Original deliverables

Manual resulting from this project. March 2016. Includes instructions on how to modify and add items to Wikidata.

1. Whitepaper on open data management by cultural institutions on Wikidata. Deliverable D1  Done
   • The whitepaper is useful for any cultural organization that considers working with Wikidata. It explains how the Wikimedia world and Wikidata work, and why contributing data to Wikidata might be interesting and useful.
   • This paper was met with enthusiasm by the GLAM-wiki community and is now marked for translation into other languages. If you think it might be interesting in your language too, feel free to help translating.
2. Open data publication of .csv datasets from the participating institutions. Deliverable D2  Done
   • All participating art collections have made a csv file of their collection (internally) available under a CC0 license.
3. Workshop and advisory board meeting I.  Done
   • This meeting took place on Wednesday 28 October 2015.
4. Upload of csv datasets to Wikidata.  Done
5. RDF export from Wikidata. Deliverable D3  Done
6. Manual on open data management by cultural institutions on Wikidata. Deliverable D4  Done
7. Final report (internal). Deliverable D5  Done
8. Workshop and advisory board meeting II.  Done
   • This meeting took place on Friday 29 January 2016.

Additional results and outcomes

Visualisations and statistics: a series of interesting and remarkable ways to show the data related to this project, and statistics about new edits and re-use (work in progress)

Tools and resources

• Autolist query for all works from the above collections on Wikidata
• Dynamic list of the artworks on Wikidata in all participating collections (heavy page - loads very slowly!)
• .json files that show changes in the data over time
• Wikidata:Data donation