Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data

Adoration of the Magi (Q5861089) by Peter Paul Rubens (Q5599), collection Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) (Q1471477)

Wikidata editing session for institutions

The project Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data was a project in de period 2015-2016 in what the metadata of collections of museums in Flanders was uploaded to Wikidata.

Purpose

Packed vzw started, with support from Wikimedia and its users, the project Linked Open Data via Wikidata in what cultural institutions start working with Wikidata. The project exists out of:

1. A white paper is written about Wikidata. The document describes how data can be added to Wikidata, what the benefits are, best practices, user cases, and more.
2. Participating partner organisations provide a CSV dataset with their art works.
3. This dataset will be added to Wikidata under a CC0 license.
4. The partner organisations receive back an RDF export with their data.

Also three YouTube videos have been created to explain the project:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2XsjAg21n-jTNQl6X3UbZO2f8II2xn5r

The project resulted in a white paper being written, see: Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data/Whitepaper.

History and background

Linked Open Data publicatie met Wikidata is a follow-up to several earlier projects:

1. Persistente Identificatie (2013-2014) (information in Dutch) investigated if persistent URIs would simplify the maintenance and information exchange of artworks in 10 different Flemish art databases.
2. Persistente identificatie en open cultuur data (2014-2015) (information in Dutch). In this project, persistent identifiers for more than 34,000 artworks from seven Flemish museums were made operational.

It is also closely associated with opencultuurdata.be.

Contacts

• Coordination by PACKED vzw, the Flemish Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage
  • Bert Lemmens
  • Barbara Dierickx
  • Alina Saenko
• Wikimedia
  • Sandra Fauconnier (User:Spinster), advisor/producer, workshops, reports, community liaison (freelancer)
  • Multichill, advisor/uploader (volunteer)
  • Romaine, support and organisation, for Wikimedia Belgium

Partners

• Vlaamse Kunst Collectie (VKC) / Flemish Art Collection   (Q2542010)
  • Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (KMSKA) / Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp   (Q1471477)
  • Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent (MSK Gent) / Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent   (Q2365880)
  • Groeningemuseum in Brugge   (Q1948674)
• Vlaamse Kunst Collectie / Flemish Art Collection ('virtual' collection)
• Contemporary Art Heritage Flanders (partnership of four contemporary art museums in Flanders)
  • Mu.ZEE in Oostende   (Q1928672)
  • S.M.A.K. in Gent   (Q1540707)
• Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap   (Q2173225)
• M - Museum Leuven   (Q2362660)

Budget

• Grant: GLAM program

Timeline

Presentation on 20 June 2017

• 28 October 2015 - Meeting of project Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data in Brussels   (Wikidata project page) (Sandra Fauconnier, Romaine, Barbara (Packed vzw))
• October 2015-January 2016 - Import metadata from collections to Wikidata   (Multichill)
• 29 January 2016 - Wikidata meeting for cultural institutions organised by PACKED vzw at Faro in Brussels   (info | photos | final report published (archived) | publication) (Sandra Fauconnier, Multichill, Romaine)
  • Publication of whitepaper: Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data/Whitepaper
• July-August 2016 - Participation of the Museum of Fine Arts (MSK Ghent) in Wiki Loves Art 2016   (info)
• 20 June 2017 - Presentation about the project during Sharing is Caring Brussels 2017

Statistics

• 31 794 artworks from 8 museums added to Wikidata

Related links

• Vlaamse Kunstcollectie op Wikidata
• Project page on Wikidata
• Whitepaper
• (en) Manual Wikidata for collection managers   (also)

Announcements and notices

• (nl) PACKED vzw: verrijking records van kunstwerken op Wikidata, 16 November 2017   (archived)
• Flemish art collections added to the Wikidata Distributed Game, 8 March 2019
• (nl) PACKED: verslag presentatie PACKED, VKC en KBS op Open Belgium 2019, 25 March 2019   (archived)