Wikidata:WikiProject Heritage Collections

Aim and Scope

The aim of the present project is to create the world’s most comprehensive high quality database of archival fonds and heritage collections (including contemporary scientific collections or documentation holdings) and to ensure the interlinking of respective catalogues, finding aids, or collection databases with Wikidata.

The project more specifically serves to coordinate the following activities:

the implementation and maintenance of ontologies and multilingual thesauri related to the description of archival fonds and heritage collections;
the interlinking of catalogues, finding aids, and collection databases with Wikidata with the help of the archives at (P485), documentation files at (P10527), and similar properties;
the enhancement and completion of such data;
the inclusion of the data in Wikipedia and its sister projects, such as in infoboxes, section templates, or lists;
the promotion of the use of the data to create applications that allow users to search across several heritage collections at once (e.g. library discovery systems);
the development and promotion of effective learning / training settings to teach GLAM staff how to add data about their holdings.

Note that the following aspects are not within the scope of this project:

For the description of heritage institutions, see: WikiProject Heritage institutions.
For the full description of selected holdings and archival structures in Wikidata, see: WikiProject Archival Description.
For the description of individual books, see: WikiProject Books; and for the rendering of bibliographic information in general, see: WikiCite and Scholia.

Use Cases

The use cases pursued by this project comprise:

Describing fonds and collections, e.g as part of the description of a heritage institution; this can serve to improve the corresponding Wikipedia entries or facilitate semantic searches across various collections and archives.
Pointing from a Wikidata item to the record set within an archival fonds or the part of a collection where the object in question can be found (e.g. the original copy of an international treaty) or where further information (e.g. documentation files) about the entity described by the Wikidata item can be found. It is possible to do so in each of the following cases:
- the finding aid / catalogue is available online and the record set or collection unit in question (or even the description of the individual object) can be addressed via a URL;
- the finding aid / catalogue is available online, but the record set or collection unit (or object description page) in question cannot be addressed via a URL;
- the archival finding aid is not available online and the record set or collection unit (or object description page) in question cannot be addressed via a URL.
Pointing from within catalogues, finding aids, and collection databasis to entities contained in Wikidata – which, if this is done consistently across the catalogues and finding aids of various institutions, will facilitate the interlinking of these catalogues and finding aids and serve as a basis for semantic searches across various collections and archives (e.g. by linking internal thesauri for person names or place names to Wikidata, thus using Wikidata as a collaborative authority file).
Using Wikidata in combination with catalogues, finding aids, and collection databases that have been made available as linked data.

Pilot Implementation of Graph-based Search in Library Discovery System

In 2024, a pilot implementation of a graph-based query expansion making use of "archives at" statements has been rolled out on the Library Discovery System of the ETH Library (implemented in form of an extension of Ex Libris Primo). Said Library Discovery System allows users to find holdings related to persons, no matter where these holdings are located, the only requirement being that they be referenced on Wikidata (search for "Ettore Cella" or "Angelique Rockas", for example).

Case Reports

Linking Private Collections Semi-Automatically (using P485)
Estermann, Beat (2000). Wikidata for Libraries Hackday Series, This Month in GLAM, Vol. X, Issue I, January 2000.

Related WikiProjects

Participants

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{{Ping project|Heritage Collections}}

Beat Estermann (talk) 09:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]