Wikidata:WikiProject Archival Description

Aim and Scope edit

The aim of the present project is to create the world’s most comprehensive high quality database of archival fonds and heritage collections, to represent archival structures within Wikidata where this is deemed useful and to ensure the interlinking between archival finding aids and Wikidata.

The project more specifically serves to coordinate the following activities:

the creation of an inventory of all existing public databases that contain information about archival fonds and heritage collections;
the implementation and maintenance of ontologies and multilingual thesauri relating to the description of archival fonds and heritage collections;
the interlinking between archival finding aids and Wikidata and collection catalogues and Wikidata;
the ingestion of data about archival fonds and heritage collections into Wikidata;
the enhancement and completion of such data;
the use of the data to create maintenance lists on Wikipedia;
the inclusion of the data into Wikipedia and its sister projects, such as in infoboxes or lists;
the use of the data to create applications that improve the user experience when it comes to searching several archives at once.

Use Cases edit

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 also serve to improve the corresponding Wikipedia entries.
Creating an inventory of such fonds and collections for various purposes:
- for the systematic cataloguing and description of such fonds and collections;
- to improve their findability and to facilitate the search process by providing useful information about the fonds and collections from a user perspective;
- as a planning tool for the heritage institution (digitization planning, preservation measures, etc.)
- as a basis for research activities.
Representing internal structures of heritage institutions to bridge the gap between the description of heritage institutions at the organizational level and individual artefacts (e.g. items in Wikimedia Commons). Items that belong together can be assigned to the same collection or record set, thus facilitating navigation and discovery as the number of objects on Wikimedia Commons is increasing.
Pointing from a WD-item to the record set within an archival fonds where the object in question can be found (e.g. the original copy of an international treaty) or where further information about the entity described by the WD-item can be found. It should be possible to do so in each of the following cases:
- the archival finding aid is available online and the record set in question (or even the description of the individual object) can be addressed via an url.
- the archival finding aid is available online, but the record set (or object description page) in question cannot be addressed via an url.
- the archival finding aid is not available online and the record set (or object description page) in question cannot be addressed via an url.
Pointing from within archival finding aids to entities contained in Wikidata – which, if this is done consistently across the finding aids of various archives will facilitate the interlinking of these and serve as a basis for semantic searches across various 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 archival finding aids that have been made available as linked data.

Case Reports edit

Linking Private Collections Semi-Automatically (using P485)

Guidelines & Tools edit

Participants edit

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Wikidata:WikiProject Archival Description

Contents

Aim and Scope edit

Use Cases edit

Case Reports edit

Guidelines & Tools edit

Participants edit

Related WikiProjects edit

Navigation edit