Page 172 - Building Digital Libraries

Sharing Data—Harvesting, Linking, and Distribution

17 million digital objects from cultural heritage institutions
around the United States, exposing millions of users to collec-
tions and primary resources that would have previously been
unknown. But what is more, the DPLA is creating services and
exposing its aggregated metadata to the research community,
and in the course of utilizing these services, researchers have
exposed new ways of searching, evaluating, and imagining
the DPLA collections. The DPLA applications page illustrates
4
what can happen when a cultural heritage organization makes
a commitment to not only access, but to exposing the underly-
ing metadata.

Biblissima, Grandes Chroniques de France, ca. 1460
http://demos.biblissima-condorcet.fr/chateauroux/demo/
This project by the Biblissima and the Bibliothèque Natio-
nale de France illustrates how open data, coupled with open
standards, can be utilized to reclaim the historical record. In
the world of rare books and illuminated manuscripts, it is not
uncommon to have a manuscript or manuscript pages where
the text is intact, but the illuminations are missing. Through-
out time, illuminated manuscripts have been pulled apart, with
pieces ending up at organizations around the world. As orga-
nizations digitize this content, cultural heritage organizations
have an opportunity to reclaim these manuscripts and restore
them, at least digitally, to their original form. This collabora-
tion between the Biblissima and the Bibliothèque Nationale de
France demonstrates just such a project. Using IIIF, these two
organizations have been able to reclaim the initial manuscripts
for future generations.

These are just two of the thousands of examples of digital projects, exhibits,
and innovative research projects that are being developed by organizations
committed to providing open data and services. Libraries, and especially
digital library managers, need to shift their primary focus from primarily
an access mindset to an open data mindset. To be sure, access in any form
is better than no access, or to extremely restricted access to content. But as
the digital humanities and new fields of interdisciplinary research continue
to emerge, it will be access to the aggregated underlying data that will likely
drive future discoveries and innovation.

Linked Data

While some libraries still struggle to make their digital metadata and col-
lections openly available, the larger information community continues to
move forward. Outside the library community, the need for interoperability
and some level of data-sharing are settled arguments, and work has largely

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