Nomisma.organd

Linked Ancient Numismatic Data

Andrew MeadowsThe American Numismatic Society

Q. What is Nomisma.org?

A. A Namespace for Numismatic Resources

Q. What is a Namespace for?

In the beginning there was the Web…

• We browse it (note we are active, it is passive)

• It is a web of pages, linked together (in a web)

• At its best it looks really cool

• It lacks meaning

…And then there was the Semantic Web

• We browse it, but it makes connections for us

• It can still be a web of pages

• But more powerfully, it is also a web of things or resources

• It still looks cool

• It is as smart as we make it

• It allows us all to do our own thing, but linkour output seamlessly

So why do we care?

• We work in different institutions

• We work with different institutions

• We work on different projects

• We work on different types of projects

• We work in different ways

• We work in different languages

• But we want to link and share data

Hoards Finds

Corpora/Mint studies

Collections

Specimen

Specimen

Specimen

SpecimenSpecimen

Reference

Reference ReferenceReferenceReference

The Answer: Linked Open Data

Five Stars

Four Rules

1. Use URIs as names for things

2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names

3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF*, SPARQL)

4. Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things

Linked Data is about using the Web to connect related data that wasn't previously linked, or using the Web to lower the barriers to linking data currently linked using other methods. More specifically, Wikipedia defines Linked Data as "a term used to describe a recommended best practice for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data, information, and knowledge on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF."

So how does the Semantic Web work?

• XML Extensible Markup Language

• URI Uniform Resource Identifier

• RDF Resource Description Framework

XML

<Mint>Rome</Mint>

Statement

This coin in my collection

was minted at

<Mint>Rome</Mint>

A Statement with URIs

numismatics.org/collection/1941.131.300

http://nomisma.org/ontology/minted_at

nomisma.org/id/rome

numismatics.org/collection/1941.131.300

http://nomisma.org/ontology/minted_at

nomisma.org/id/rome

nomisma.org/id/rome

http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/423025

http://pelagios-project.blogspot.fr

• Literary texts

• Papyri

• Inscriptions

• Objects

• Museums

• PAS

• Coins

• Resources

http://awmc.unc.edu/awmc/applications/carte-transitional/

RDF Statements

1. Subject (http://numismatics.org/collection/1941.131.300)

2. Predicate (http://nomisma.org/ontology/minted_at)

3. Object (http://nomisma.org/id/rome)

There are three parts: this is a ‘Triple’

So where do URIs come from?

Standard vocabularies for describing relationships:

• SKOS - Simple Knowledge Organization System

• Dublin Core (dcterms) - Defines general metadata attributes

• Friend-of-a-Friend (foaf) - For describing people and their social network

See further:http://www.w3.org/wiki/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData/CommonVocabularies

http://lov.okfn.org/dataset/lov/

So where do URIs come from?

Specialised resources for common things

• Geonames.org (Modern geography)

• Pleiades (Ancient geography)

• VIAF.org (People)

So where do URIs come from?Objects: CIDOC-ICOM recommendation on LinkedOpen Data for museums

• Whenmuseumobjectsarereferred to in Internet applications, it is necessarythat the objectsareuniquelyidentifiedbysuitableURIs.

• In order to avoiddifferentinstitutionsgeneratingcompetingURIs for the sameobject, eachobject (or set of objects) shouldhaveonepreferredauthoritythatassigns the URI for the object. The URI authority for the objectmustbeknown to allinterestedpartiesorbeeasy to discover.

• The mostnaturalcandidate for the URI authority for an object is the museumthatcurates the object, regardless of whether the museumintends to provideitsownservices on the Internet ornot. This is becauseit is the onlyinstitutionthatcanabsolutelydeterminethattwodifferentmuseumobjectURIsactuallydescribe the samething.

• This URI shouldbederived in a simplewayfrom the inventorynumberspublished in exhibitioncatalogues, throughon-linemuseumcatalogueaccessorbyaskingmuseumstaff. Thiswillavoid the needgothrough a matchingprocessthatcouldgenerateerrors.

• This URI shouldhave a formthatenablesanymuseum to provide a LinkedOpen Data servicethatresolves to the associateddescription of thatobject.

So where do URIs come from?

Specialised resources for numismatic things

Nomisma.org

RRC, RIC, OCRE, CHRR, CHREP, RPC?

http://nomisma.org/ocre/id/ric.1(2).aug.6 ?