Linking Islands of Data

Linking Islands of Data was a research network based around centres of excellence that study the Classical World on both sides of the Atlantic and build upon the legacy of the National Endowment for Humanities funded Linked Ancient World Data Institute.

The network focused on classics, archaeology, epigraphy and museology and created a variety of digital and analogue outputs - including an application programming interface (API), documentation and guidance for best practice in the use of Linked Open Data and high resolution document handling - using established and emergent technological methods and communities of practice based around 3 workshops held at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Brown University and Open Context.

The research project ultimately contributed towards the Fitzwilliam’s Being an Islander: Art and Identity of the large Mediterranean Islands exhibition.

The project was generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) [grant number AH/S012478/1].

The portion of the chart used as the image header is a Portolan chart from Cambridge University Library collection and is used under a CC-BY-NC license.

Project information

Principal Investigator: Daniel Pett
Co-Investigator: Elton Barker
Project start date: 1 February 2019
Project end date: 31 March 2022
Project website: https://data-islands.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
Funding award value: £47,839
Funding reference: AH/S012478/1

Outcomes of the project

The project's timescale was thrown off course heavily by the Covid 19 Pandemic, University Strikes and parental commitments. It therefore was extended over 3 years to deliver what it could to meet the original aims, bearing in mind that international travel which was to form the backbone of this network was curtailed.

Therefore. this project realised the following:

Two international workshops held at the Fitzwilliam Museum, St John's College and St Edmund's College with over 90 people attending.
Two animated explanatory videos about the use of Linked Open Data
The implementation of IIIF images within the Fitzwilliam Museum's infrastructure, which enabled http://kerameikos.org to aggregate Greek vessels with deep zooming images
A prototype mapping interface for exploring linked open usable data (LOUD) for objects in the museum's Antiquities collection https://mapping-antiquity.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
Geocoded placenames for the Museum's place thesaurus
Implementation of Linked Art for all museum objects
A variety of presentations at AIA, Linked Pasts and beyond.