The Winner Takes It All?APIs and Linked Data

Adrian Stevenson

Jane Stevenson

Mimas, The University of Manchester

ww1.discovery.ac.uk

WW1 Discovery Project

• Exemplar illustrating principles of the JISC Discovery initiative

• Discovery about advocating ‘open’ and ‘aggregating’

• Make digital content more discoverable by people and machines

• Building WW1 aggregation API and discovery layer

www.discovery.ac.uk

WW1 Discovery: How?

• Aggregate data from existing APIs – IWM and NMM

• Help others with example APIs – BL, MCR Archives, Welsh Voices, LSE

• Formats: SOLR, RSS, OpenSearch, OAI-PMH, CSV

#sxsw #lodlam

Prototype WW1 API

WW1 Discovery Layer: Info

WW1 Discovery Layer: Geo-data

Some Challenges

• Difficulties merging data

– varied content

• Lack of content

– images

– geo-data

• Content licenses not open

• Lack of APIs

Linking Lives

• Linking Lives is a JISC-funded project to create an end-user interface based on Linked Data

• A biographical interface, providing information about individuals that is taken from a variety of sources

• It enables us to place archival descriptions within a much broader context

http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb227msda865.w4

http://data.archiveshub.ac.uk/

Type: geo:SpatialThing

Within: http://www.uk-postcodes.com/postcode/SE146NWand http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/id/postcodeunit/SE146NW

Event: Birth of Skinner, Beverley, 1938-1999, artist and Death of Skinner, Beverley, 1938-1999, artist

Martha Beatrice Webb

Place of birth: Gloucester, EnglandPlace of death: Liphook, Hampshire, England

Life dates: 1858-1943Epithet: social reformer and historianFamily name: Webb

Image

from: Beatrice Webb lettersBeatrice Webb (1858 - 1943). Fabian Socialist, social reformer, writer, historian, diarist. Wife, collaborator and assistant of Sidney Webb, later Lord Passfield. Together they contributed to the radical ideology first of the Liberal Party and later of the Labour Party.

from: Beatrice Webb, A summer holiday in Scotland, 1884.Beatrice Webb (1858-1943), nee Potter, social reformer and diarist. Married to Sidney Webb, pioneers of social science. She was involved in many spheres of political and social activity including the Labour Party, Fabianism, social observation, investigations into poverty, development of socialism, the foundation of the National Health Service and post war welfare state, the London School of

Biographical Notes

Works

Our PartnershipMy ApprenticeshipThe case for the factory actsBeatrice Webb’s diaries; edited by Margaret ColeThe Diary

Knows

http://dbpedia.org/page/George_Bernard_Shaw

http://dbpedia.org/page/Sidney_Webb,_1st_Baron_Passfield

Matching Subjects

http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb738ms58

http://viaf.org/viaf/44311096/

Grace Ford, 1896-1941 ‘same as’ Grace Ford?

Hub data inconsistencies

• Winston Leonard Churchill

• Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

• Churchill, Sir, Winston Leonard Spencer, 1874-1965, knight, prime minister and historian

• Churchill, Winston Leonard, 1874-1965, prime minister

• Churchill, Sir Winston, 1874-1965, knight, statesman and historian

We can start to say things that go beyond what is known within our own space…and if we use the same URIs we can link data sources much more easily

http://data.archiveshub.ac.uk/id/person/nra/webbmarthabeatrice1858-1943socialreformer

<is the same as>

http://viaf.org/viaf/86607236/

<is the same as>

http://bnb.data.bl.uk/doc/person/WebbBeatrice1858-1943

Vocabularies

Conclusions

• APIs offer useful tools & lightweight approach

• WW1: creating APIs for institutions

• Locah: Linked Data for over 200 institutions

• Linked Data makes use of the Web architecture

• Uses HTTP URIs to represent resources

• Navigate through things via URIs – Web of Data

• Can make APIs more ‘Webby’

Conclusions

• Linked Data opens data up to wide variety of uses

• Can de-reference classes and properties

• Need to think more about the end user

• Need more tools

• Need to collaborate

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/1680-1689

Maybe not so much….

http://www.funnyjunksite.com/pictures/funnypics/sport/sports/funny_sports_picture_99.jpg

as….

http://thedailycatblog.com/?attachment_id=273