This document discusses the American Art Collaborative project to publish museum collection data as Linked Open Data. It summarizes how the Smithsonian American Art Museum partnered with the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute to map over 44,000 records to the RDF data model and link them to external datasets using the KARMA data integration tool. This process helps tear down data silos and provides new ways for audiences to explore American art collections online.

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2. The Blossoming of the Semantic Web:
Linked Open Data and the American Art Collaborative
Diana Folsom
Eleanor Fink:
Head of Collection Digitization
Art and Technology Advisor and Project
Coordinator
Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History
and Culture (Gilcrease Museum)
Information Sciences Institute, USC
Rachel Allen:
Pedro Szekely
Deputy Director
Project Leader
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Information Sciences Institute, USC
Shane Richey
Digital Media Manager
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

3. AmericanArtCollaborative.org

4. LINKED OPEN DATA LANDSDCAPE
Eleanor E. Fink, Art and Technology Consultant

5. Linked Open Data
A method of publishing structured data so that it can be
interlinked and become more useful
Uses a markup language called RDF that allows the
relationship between subject, predicate, and object to be
tagged explicitly so that when you are searching using
Linked Open Data you don’t get the “noise” or unrelated
information you get with a Google search

6. facts:
<subject> <predicate> <object>
using W3C standards (RDF)
Linked Data
links between facts from different
databases
like links between Web pages
University of Southern California
Pedro Szekely and Craig Knoblock

7. Linked Open Data tears down data silos

8. LOD CLOUD
Window to Universe of Knowledge

9. Linked Open Data
•
•
tears down data silos
provides seamless access across
museums and world of knowledge (articles,
objects in other museums ,obituaries, Wikipedia,
New York Times, etc.)
• provides rich content that supports K-12
education around the country

10. Linked Open Data
•
deepens experience of audiences and reaches
new audiences
• can engage audiences in research and change
how museums connect with people
• can lead to innovative funding through new
applications

16. American Art Collaborative

17. American Art Collaborative
connections across websites and world of knowledge

18. Smithsonian American Art Museum
and USC Information Sciences
Institute
How We Did It
Rachel Allen, Deputy Director, SAAM and
Eleanor E. Fink, Art and Technology Consultant

19. The American Art Museum

20. A National Mandate and a
Populist Approach

21. American Art’s Technology Goals
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Be a crossroads for American art
Lead in use of new media
Experiment with technology
Expand outreach
Attract the born-digital generation

22. Benefits of Linked Open Data
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Make our collections data more discoverable
Allow for sophisticated queries about data
Create connections with other museums
Create connections with other resources
Create connections with dispersed content on
social media
Help us better adapt to the changing web

23. Our Team Questions about LOD
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Will it take too much time to prepare our data?
How does LOD differ from a Google search?
Is it foolish to do before standards are in place?
What if people do inappropriate things with our
data?
 Will it be worth the time and effort in the end?
 How do we handle our non-public data?

24. Five Phases to Linked Open Data
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Prepare the data
Determine the ontology
Map the data to RDF
Link to hub datasets
Publish the data.

25. Linking the American Art Museum to the Cloud
The Process: SAAM Ontology

26. Linking the American Art Museum to the Cloud
The Process
Mapping the Data to RDF (Resource Description Framework)
• Used KARMA tool to model the data (http://www.isi.edu/integration/karma/)

27. Ontology: CRM

28. Ontology: EDM2
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distinguishing between a 'provided item' (painting, book) and its
digital representations
distinguishing between an item and the metadata record
describing it
allowing the ingestion of multiple records for the same item,
which may contain contradictory statements about it
EDM re-uses elements coming from already-established
vocabularies, such as Dublin Core, OAI-ORE, SKOS and CIDOC-CRM

29. Information Sciences Institute
Early work with DARPA and creation of
Internet
Current work also with private sector, NSF,
government, military, museums etc. E.g.
R & D, cyber security, internet protocols, Linked
Open Data, etc.

30. ISI Research Environment is Unique in Academia:
5-10 Year Full Research-To-Transition Cycle
BASIC
RESEARCH
PhD
theses
Graduate
projects
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY
RESEARCH & INTEGRATION
DEPLOYMENT &
COMMERCIALIZATION
ISI Startups
CrossDisciplinary
Multi-Institutional
Collaborations
Collabs
w/ companies
& customers
Academic and
Curriculum
Development,
Teaching
Broad Range of
Expertise and
Interests
Faster and
Comprehensive
Delivery of Basic
Research Products
NSF, AFOSR, NIH, NRL
DARPA, NSF, NIH, DTO
SOCOM, DARPA, AFRL

31. ISI’s Expertise
http://isi.edu/integration/karma

32. KARMA
A Data Integration Tool that eliminates data silos

33. KARMA
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KARMA, open source, semi-automated,
interactive, data integration tool that makes LOD
conversion easy
Initially developed for the Intelligence Advanced
Research Projects Activity (IARPA). Now has been
applied to 44,000 records from SAAM and
several other museums
Self learning (learns from patterns with each
mapping)

34. KARMA
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Can accept data in all major formats
including spreadsheets, and XML
Works with any ontology that a client
chooses
High accuracy rate (SAAM over 94%
matching score)
Staff can interact with tool to make
adjustments

35. KARMA
Increases data accuracy
Scales to large databases
Keeps Linked Data up-to-date

36. Karma’s Current Audience
Intelligence
Science
Cultural Heritage
Entertainment
…anyone who needs to
tear down data silos

38. Link Curation
University of Southern California
Pedro Szekely and Craig Knoblock

39. PROCESS: LINKING EXTERNALLY
Completed:
• DBPedia - 2,194
• New York Times – 70
• Getty Union List of Artist Names - 2,110 Rijksmuseum
dataset – 551
• In the Future:
• Places
• Concepts
• Other museum datasets
• Social media content

40. Match Precision Linking Museum Data
DBPedia
New York Times
University of Southern California
2,194
70
Getty ULAN®
Rijksmuseum
Geonames
2,110
551
3,068
Pedro Szekely and Craig Knoblock

41. University of Southern California
Pedro Szekely and Craig Knoblock

44. Immediate Next Steps
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Verify geographic place links
Add other additional links
Develop an ongoing management plan
Take over hosting of the OWLIM database
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Publish and announce the SPARQL endpoint

45. Future Applications
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Improve artist representation on Wikipedia
Embed LOD into our website
Tag and link museum social media content
Expand our use of LOD to enhance research
Relationship finder application for curating stories
Encourage development of museum applications

46. Multimedia Stories

47. ESWC 2013
Extended Semantic Web Conference

48. Benefits and Opportunities
Linked Open Data can:
Create connections across diverse systems,
(locally, regionally, around the globe)
 Provide new ways to conduct business, find
information, develop applications
 Lead to discovery of new research and new
ideas across disciplines
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49. Next Steps
The Semantic Web needs more cultural information
Become a part of the LOD cloud and help us build a
critical mass of linked cultural data!
Together we can
Seek funding for data conversion and ongoing
maintenance
Provide tools like KARMA
Develop training and education about linked open data
Build a collaborative and supportive network of
practitioners

50. Join Us

51. Thank You
Questions and Discussion