Just Announced: USC/Smithsonian Collaboration Will Convert 40,000 Art Catalog Records Into Linked Open Data (LOD)

From the University of Southern California:

The USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI) is collaborating with the Smithsonian American Art Museum to provide more detailed and more easily accessed information about artworks in the museum’s collection online than has previously been possible.
Through this collaboration, online users will soon be able to access records of more than 40,000 artworks, which will be converted to Linked Open Data (LOD), a system that tags and publishes information online in a structured format designed to be easier to interlink – both inside and outside of the museum’s online presence.
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For example, if someone were looking to access information about the works of artist Jackson Pollock, he or she could easily search and obtain relevant results automatically assembled using the LOD from every museum that owns Pollock artwork.
“We hope several art museums will join in the effort and work with us,” said Eleanor Fink, art and technology consultant for the project and former director of the Getty Information Institute.
Fink said the project currently under way will serve as a model that can provide LOD conversion guidelines and tools for other museums and art organizations.

Read the Complete Announcement

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