Presented December 10 2012 as a guest lecture to the Advanced Archival Description class in New York University's Archives and Public History program.

1. Linked Data and the
Semantic Web in an
Archival Context
Mark A. Matienzo
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
HIST-GA.2031: Advanced Archival Description
New York University
December 10, 2012

2. what do we mean by
THE SEMANTIC WEB?
Credit: Ivan Herman, http://www.w3.org/2012/Talks/0608-Oracle-IH/#talk

3. SYSTEM(S) OF
KNOWLEDGE
Credit: Francisco José López Villa, http://flic.kr/p/btuR46

4. improving FINDABILITY
through STRUCTURE
Credit: Ivan Herman, http://www.w3.org/2012/Talks/0608-Oracle-IH/#talk

5. improving FINDABILITY
Credit: Ivan Herman, http://www.w3.org/2012/Talks/0608-Oracle-IH/#talk

6. through STRUCTURE
Credit: Ivan Herman, http://www.w3.org/2012/Talks/0608-Oracle-IH/#talk

7. data INTEGRATION
Credit: Nick Olejniczak, http://flic.kr/p/CQjzi

8. application
INTEGRATION
Credit: Ian Britton, http://flic.kr/p/a7E8EJ

9. data
we DEPEND on
is MOVING to the WEB
Credit: Brian J. Matis, http://flic.kr/p/9RKtP9

10. silos
are
BAD
for
data
Credit: Calvin Dellinger, http://flic.kr/p/69SaCN

11. if we DEPEND on
each other’s data,
we need a shared
INFRASTRUCTURE
Credit: US National Archives, http://flic.kr/p/bU67Ye

12. SEMANTIC WEB =
INFRASTRUCTURE
Credit: US National Archives, http://flic.kr/p/bU67Ye

13. the SEMANTIC WEB
has TECHNOLOGIES
Credit: Jon Parise, http://flic.kr/p/hf3xq

14. the SEMANTIC WEB has
Credit: Kristian Bjornard, http://flic.kr/p/86Zag7

15. LINKED DATA is
a set of (simple)
principles for the
semantic web
Credit: Thomas Hawk, http://flic.kr/p/rFb2Q

16. principle 1.
use URIs
as NAMES
for THINGS

17. this URI:
http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/#book
identifies the book:
Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space
(1st Edition) by Tom Heath and Christian Bizer

18. principle 2.
use HTTP URIs
so that people
can LOOK UP
those NAMES

19. using a HTTP URI
as a NAME allows
us to get DATA
about a THING
using the web
(which you probably know how to use)

20. in other words,
principle 1+2:
unambiguous names
that allow us to know
HOW and WHERE
to get information
Credit: Tom Woodward, http://flic.kr/p/a6ND3Y

21. principle 3.
when someone looks
up a URI, provide
useful INFORMATION,
using the STANDARDS
of the semantic web

22. semantic web
standards
provide a
flexible &
expressive
structure
using these
principles!
Credit: United States National Archives, http://flic.kr/p/d7DvX9

23. principle 4.
include LINKS to
other URIs so
people can find
more THINGS

24. LINKS are
relationships
between
THINGS that
are named
by their URIs
Credit: Ethan Hein, http://flic.kr/p/9mfF1z

25. RDF for
is the basis
Resource
Description
Framework
many semantic
web standards
Credit: Gregory Williams, http://flic.kr/p/5ybibi

26. RDF
lets us make statements
about things consistently
Credit: Kat Masback, http://flic.kr/p/KiXjE

27. RDF statements have
a subject http://matienzo.org/#me
a predicate http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/givenName
an object “Mark”
& are called TRIPLES

28. GRAPHS are sets
of RDF triples
Credit: Ed Summers, http://inkdroid.org/journal/2008/09/11/nkoscendi/

29. why is linked data
IMPORTANT for
ARCHIVES?
archival data has
RELATIONSHIPS &
we’ve known this
for years!

30. peter scott (1966)

31. Functions
Agents
corp. bodies Records
people
families

32. Eero Saarinen Collection 1373 linear feet Saarinen, Eero
dc:title dc:extent foaf:name
arch:heldBy
dc:creator
http://library.yale.edu/ http://hdl.handle.net/ http://viaf.org/viaf/
mssa/#org 10079/fa/mssa.ms.0593 41868977
gr:legalName
Manuscripts and Archives,
Yale University Library
archival example:
we have this graph.

33. Eero Saarinen Collection 1373 linear feet Saarinen, Eero
dc:title dc:extent foaf:name
arch:heldBy
dc:creator
http://library.yale.edu/ http://hdl.handle.net/ http://viaf.org/viaf/
mssa/#org 10079/fa/mssa.ms.0593 41868977
gr:legalName
Manuscripts and Archives,
Yale University Library Eero Saarinen
foaf:name
http://www.aaa.si.edu/ dc:creator http://dbpedia.org/
collections/5589 resource/Eero_Saarinen
dc:title dc:creator
Aline and Eero Saarinen papers, http://dbpedia.org/
1906-1977 resource/Aline_B._Saarinen
we have another...

34. Eero Saarinen Collection 1373 linear feet Saarinen, Eero
dc:title dc:extent foaf:name
arch:heldBy
dc:creator
http://library.yale.edu/ http://hdl.handle.net/ http://viaf.org/viaf/
mssa/#org 10079/fa/mssa.ms.0593 41868977
gr:legalName
Manuscripts and Archives,
Yale University Library owl:sameAs Eero Saarinen
foaf:name
http://www.aaa.si.edu/ dc:creator http://dbpedia.org/
collections/5589 resource/Eero_Saarinen
dc:title dc:creator
Aline and Eero Saarinen papers, http://dbpedia.org/
1906-1977 resource/Aline_B._Saarinen
let’s combine them

35. make
your
DATA
work
BETTER
Credit: Simon Bisson: http://flic.kr/p/6SoWZT

36. THANKS!
http://matienzo.org