The value of Wikidata for your GLAM institution
The value of Wikidata for your GLAM institution
Wikidata is a database that can be edited jointly by the public. Wikidata supports the more than 280 language versions of Wikipedia as a common source of structured data. This data can be used in all the articles of the free encyclopedia and is also free to re-use by other interested parties. With Wikidata it is easy to connect vocabulary and also captures the concept in different languages.
A database - free to use
[edit]Maintained in one place, ready for use anywhere! For example, a sourced birth date of a well known artist can now be used on all language versions of Wikipedia when it is stored in Wikidata. All the data in the database has a CC0 license, which means that the material can be used free of charge and without limitations.
Wikidata has been designed to support both the community that creates Wikipedia and the use by third parties who want to use a large amount of curated data. For example, amounts of meta data from museums are included in Wikidata and linked with data from other organisations. The information can be sourced so that it is clear which knowledge institution has contributed the information, and to ensure the quality.
Wikidata makes it easy to include the museum's information on the various Wikipedia versions allowing Wikidata effectively to reduce the maintenance burden. The information need only be kept in one place and it will also be possible to automatically create lists and timelines instead of spending lots of time in creating and updating them by hand. Being able to rely on data collected by a much larger community saves a lot of work for volunteers who contribute to Wikipedias in small languages.
It's never been easier to spread your knowledge to the world.
Development and opportunity to support
[edit]The initial development of Wikidata was led by Wikimedia Deutschland, the German local association of the Wikimedia movement. Funding was provided by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence [AI]², Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Google Inc. Wikidata was then passed to the Wikimedia Foundation for further development and maintenance. Wikimedia is here to help your organisation if you are thinking of how you can use Wikidata.
What you can bring to Wikidata
[edit]- Share metadata about your artwork and artists. This gives you greater visibility and outreach to a large audience.
- Source statements in areas where you are authoritative, which is another way to increase your visibility and use of your research.
- Research on the structured data available on Wikidata to enrich your exhibitions. For example, how many female respectively male artists have you bought art from in the different time periods?
What you can use to Wikidata for
[edit]- You can visualize your data in new ways without having to build tools for it yourself. Tools such as Reasonator (see for example bit.ly/royalarmoury) can neatly package the data in various ways.
- Finding advanced information on relevant collections or works. For example, how many institutions have works of type X placed in a castle which is a World Heritage Site?
- Reuse and update your own databases with improved meta data from Wikidata. For example, translations of descriptions or keywords.