Wikidata: A Magic Portal for Siegfried and Roy

Abstract

A project team was established in late 2019 to create a Siegfried/Wikidata integration. The project was established to make Yale University Library’s work curating digital preservation data in Wikidata actionable; that is, enable it to be consumed by the Siegfried utility for the purpose of file format identification. Once accessible by such a tool, file-system data can be linked directly to Wikidata records and thus the breadth and depth of the Wikidata dataset. The combination opens up possibilities around the EaaSI work also being developed with Wikidata in mind. The Siegfried/Wikidata collaboration was an intentional one that would have been difficult to make happen through normal circumstances; be that geographic or organisational dispersal, opportunity, or cost. The project was seen as a worthwhile endeavour to pursue independently of these restrictions and other projects may in the future need to resort to non-traditional approaches to achieve their aim. The first iteration of this work successfully went live in October 2020 and for it to continue to succeed there is a call to arms from those in the digital preservation and Wikidata communities to help push it further. Work in the pipeline is believed will continue to demonstrate the worthwhile nature of today's commitment.

Details

Creators

Spencer, Ross; Thornton, Katherine; Lehane, Richard; Cochrane, Euan

Institutions

Ravensburger AG; Yale University Library; International Atomic Energy Agency

Date

Keywords

wikidata; wikidp; format-identification; siegfried; collaboration

Publication Type

paper

License

CC BY 4.0 International

Direct Download

567766 bytes

View This Publication