Throwback: Data-Do it-Day November 28, 2023

Our colleague Gera Knol was present at the Data Do it-Day organized by Netwerk Digital Erfgoed. She has written a nice report about this

Linked Open Data (LOD), it remains a vague concept. What can you do with it, what is its added value, is it a lot of work, is it useful for my collection? All kinds of questions that often arise within the Heritage sector. On the activity day, an attempt is made to experience the broad outlines or intricacies of LOD together with a combination of presentations and workshops.

After a wonderfully relaxing cup of tea or coffee and a welcome presentation in the beautiful Metal Cathedral in Utrecht, the day starts by splitting into groups: Starters, Intermediate or Expert.

Going out with your own object (digital or physical), the day starts in a self-composed triple (group of 3 people). With your own object, the basic steps of transforming data into LOD are completed. We can see all this data in a beautiful graph at the end of the day. With similarities on material (3 objects using oil paint), ontology property and more.

After the workshops on how it works to turn an object into a LOD object, we finally end with a workshop on cleaning up datasets. With a choice of an Excel or OpenRefine workshop, we get an inside look at how data is cleaned, adjusted and checked. The linking of data (per column) to the Term Network (Reconciliation) is also discussed.

In between we are treated to a delicious lunch and a presentation about the do's and don'ts of LOD. Examples of how an incorrect link at LOD can cause strange results on a website and more examples of what you should pay attention to when it comes to metadata for an object.

This was a very successful day with a nice drink to end. If all goes well, at the end of the day everyone will be a little wiser about LOD, good metadata and cleaning it up.