Culture Geeks' talk: Adventures in Linked Data Land February 25, 2009

Culture Geeks is a community based in Brighton, open to everyone who is interested in using digital technologies in the cultural sector.

In this talk we will explore how museums might get involved with the Semantic Web, both at a practical level - what you actually do - and at the more theoretical level - what do you achieve by it.

Semantic Web technology can provide users with:

meaningful relationships across collections by providing context to previously isolated data
better and greater access to collections through new, smarter search services
greater user experience by integrating heterogeneous data on ad hoc basis

Richard Light describes his exploration of the Semantic Web's latest initiative, Linked Data. He starts with a look at dbPedia, and considers the extent to which this approach offers a new paradigm for searching historical resources.

He then moves on to explain, in as much detail as you can bear, exactly how he has published a complete museum collection as Linked Data. Finally he offers his views on the potential relevance of the CIDOC CRM to Linked Data applications.

About Richard Light
Richard worked for the MDA (now Collections Trust) from its inception until 1991. Since then he has worked freelance, concentrating on projects which involve museum information systems and/or markup languages. He wrote the first book on XML (Presenting XML, Sams Net), and partners the MODES Users Association in the development of the MODES family of museum cataloguing software, which includes ModesXML: a generic XML database.

To book a place, sign-up here on Upcoming or call: 01273 206306

There is no bar, but you can bring your own drinks. So feel free to bring drinks for yourself and to share!