2022 LD4 Conference on Linked Data

Since 1997, the national consortium Digital Scriptorium (DS; https://digital-scriptorium.org/) has been committed to providing free, cross-institutional online access to its members' collections of premodern manuscripts through an online database open to the public. DS represents over 30 institutional members representing American libraries and museums across the country with premodern manuscript collections. In 2020, DS began a redevelopment project to replace its current outmoded technology platform with one based on Linked Open Data (LOD) technologies and practices to build a national union catalog of global, premodern manuscripts in US collections. This lightning talk will summarize our processes and rationales for how we designed the data model and workflows to capture member institutions' structured metadata, transform it using OpenRefine, and import it into DS's Wikibase instance. The presentation will also highlight the development and role of DS Manuscript ID and Name Authorities for contribution to Wikidata and DS 2.0's implications for premodern manuscript description in a digital context.