Wikidata:WikiProject University of Maryland Libraries/FAQ

This page contains questions that have been asked by project participants about specific properties or scenarios that they have enountered so far in the UMD Libraries' Wikidata project. Like any other FAQ, this is a living document and it will be updated on a regular basis. (UMD catalogers can also access this information on the "Wikidata training resources" Google doc.) For the general project procedure and selected how-to guides for common Wikidata tasks, see the Wikidata project procedure page.

General questions

1. Do I need to use every property listed on the Core and recommended properties list?

   No. The only four properties you must use are the Core properties label, description, instance of, and archives at. You can use as many or as few of the Recommended properties as you want, or you can use additional properties that aren't on our list.

2. There are multiple ways to indicate dates. Which one should I use?

   Use floruit when you only have a single date that you know a person was active: for instance, if they participated in an event, published a book, were referenced in a contemporary document, etc. You should not use floruit for corporate entities.

   Use work period (start) and work period (end) if you have a range of dates for which a person was active in a certain profession.

   Use start time and end time as qualifiers to modify a statement to indicate for what period it is applicable: for instance, how long a person worked at an employer, or how long a corporation was headquartered at a location.

   employer (P108): Atlantic Monthly Press (Q84848622)

   start time (P580): 1950

   end time (P582): 1964

3. There are multiple fields for names. Which one should I use?

   Every item will have a label, which is the main name we'll use, and you can enter any alternate names in the also known as field. You don't need to use any of the other name fields. If you want to, however, you can enter the person's first and middle names in the given name field, and their surname(s) in the family name field - each name will be listed as a separate value.

   (Note: almost all names are items on their own, so given names and family names should appear as links with an identifier after you publish each statement. The downside is that if you encounter a name that has not already been established as an item, you will have to create the item yourself if you want to use given name or family name.)

   label: T.S. Eliot

   given name (P735): Thomas (Q16428906)

   given name (P735): Stearns (Q76248714)

   family name (P734): Eliot (Q29892695)

4. What should I do with AFL-CIO sub-organizations?

   The AFL-CIO has/had a number of subsidiaries and other sub-groups under its umbrella. Some of these groups have been established as items on Wikidata, but many have not. The two main ways you are likely to encounter one of these groups:

   • UMD holds the group's papers as part of its labor collection (for instance, the CIO Executive Board proceedings), and you are trying to edit or create a Wikidata item for them
   • You are editing or creating a Wikidata item for a person who was a member of one of these groups (for instance, Everett Kassalow, a member of the CIO Research Department)

   If the sub-group has been established as a Wikidata item, go ahead and edit it, or link the person's item to it. If it has not been established, refer the sub-group to Neil and Sarah for further work.

5. When entering information about a person's academic degree, should I enter academic degree as the main property with qualifiers educated at, point in time, etc., or should I use educated at as the main property with academic degree as a qualifier?

   This one is an interesting conundrum. Either way is allowed based on the property definitions for academic degree and educated at (both can be used as properties or qualifiers). Entering academic degree as the main property and adding qualifiers for educated at, point in time, etc. allows for more granularity (for instance, if working on the item for a person who earned multiple degrees at the same institution, adding multiple academic degree values allows you to specify the point in time each was earned, which you would not be able to do if you were using educated at as the main property).

   However, as we enter information on Wikidata, we're trying to think about how it might be used, processed, or searched, and information contained in qualifiers requires more complicated queries to access. Ideally, you would record the information in both educated at and academic degree properties - it would be redundant and more time-consuming, but maximally searchable.

   To try and balance efficiency and searchability, use:

   • educated at, without qualifiers, if you have limited data about the subject, or don't want to go into detail

   OR

   • both educated at and academic degree as main properties, adding qualifiers to both, if you have a good source of information and want to provide maximum detail

6. How should I handle corporate bodies whose name has changed?

   Wikidata (and also Wikipedia) doesn't have a firm policy on when you should create a new item, or just add multiple names for the same organization to the also known as field. (This can seem pretty lax compared to RDA guidelines, which require the establishment of a new authority record for most name changes.)

   Try to determine whether the corporate body has been completely re-formed (i.e. an extensive reorganization, merged with another company, etc.).

   • If you are confident that the change of name represents a completely new organization, create separate Wikidata items for each. Use properties such as replaced by or merged into to indicate the relationship between the items. (Note: generally do not use followed by; it implies a sequence of discrete items, such as books in a series or holders of a political office, rather than corporate reorganization.)
   • If the name change is minor, does not seem to signify a whole new organization, or you aren't sure, create (or edit) a single Wikidata item for the corporate body, and add variant names to the also known as field. Since this is different from how RDA/NACO handles corporate name changes, you may find yourself adding multiple LCNAF and VIAF identifiers to the same item. This will produce an alert flag, but disregard that.

   In general, err on the side of caution and do not create multiple Wikidata items if you are unsure - it's easier to go back and add a new item if you learn new information than to merge two items.

7. How do I format BnF identifiers?

   Frustratingly, BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) identifiers appear in multiple forms across VIAF and the BnF catalogs. They take the form of an eight-digit number, followed by a check character that will either be a letter or a number (essentially, an ID will either be nine digits, or eight digits and a letter). In permalinks, the identifier will be preceded by the characters cb.

   Examples:

   • permalink: ".../12148/cb120952451"

   BnF ID: 120952451

   • permalink: ".../12148/cb12095246c"

   BnF ID: 12095246c

8. What should I do if the archival collection I'm working on is part of a larger collection? Should I link my Wikidata entity to both collections?

   Remember that we are creating Wikidata items for the people and organizations represented by our archival collections, not the collections themselves. You only need to link people to the collections that directly describe them, using the archives at property. For instance, the Wikidata item for Lowell Mason should only link to the Lowell Mason Collection finding aid, even though the Lowell Mason Collection is part of the National Association for Music Education Historical Center Collection.

9. How should I treat "artistic" archival items? Are they still covered by the archives at property?

   If it's in the SCUA or SCPA archives, consider it archival material regardless of format, and use archives at for the creator's or subject's Wikidata item. Using archives at consistently allows us to track the progress of the SCUA/SCPA project (and generate some helpful statistics and cool visualizations). If you feel strongly that an archival item could also be considered an artistic work (for instance, items in the Keystone Lantern photographic slide collection), you can also add the property has works in the collection (Property:P6379) to the item for the creator. See the Wikidata item for the Keystone View Company for an example of an item that uses both archives at and has works in the collection properties to represented its distributed holdings at several libraries and museums.

10. How should I represent a university president or professor?

    Wikidata does not have specific properties for "taught at" or "president of," unfortunately. For this situation (and similar ones), we recommend that you use the property employer with a qualifier for position held.

    employer (P108): University of Maryland Libraries (Q503415)

    position held (P39): university teacher (Q1622272)

11. How should I represent the editor of a journal?

    Similar to the question above, we recommend that you use employer with a qualifier for position held.

    employer (P108): The Machinist (Q96359120)

    position held (P39): editor (Q1607826)

    You should also add a reciprocal property to the journal's item for the editor.

    editor (P98): Gordon H. Cole (Q98392869)

    start time (P580): 1947

    end time (P582): 1976

12. How should I represent the relationships between musicians and ensembles they've participated in, or other musicians with whom they have collaborated?

    • If a musician is part of a musical group, use the part of property to connect their Wikidata item to the item for the group. Create the item for the musical group if it does not already exist. Don't forget to add a reciprocal has part property to the group's item for each group member!
    • There is not currently a good way to show the connection between musicians who are not part of a specific ensemble, but known for their work together (for instance, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris). At this time, use the property significant person to show that they are connected. Please make a note on the project spreadsheet when you come across instances like these; if we find enough of them, it may be an option to propose a new property to the Wikidata community.

13. Have these questions really been asked that frequently?

    • Well, no. But they've all been asked at least once!