[sigCR] Heritage vocabularies from EH, RCAHMS, RCAHMW available as Linked Open Data

[Douglas Tudhope]

English Heritage, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, the Archaeology Data Service and the University of South Wales are pleased to announce that cultural heritage thesauri and vocabularies are now freely available as Linked Open Data as a preliminary outcome of the SENESCHAL project at:  http://www.heritagedata.org.

The vocabularies, which include concepts relating to monument types, archaeological objects, events and time periods and maritime craft are also available for download in SKOS format.

Background
These major heritage thesauri and vocabularies have been widely used as informal standards but until now have lacked the persistent Linked Open Data (LOD) URIs needed to allow them to act as vocabulary hubs for the Web of Data.

The AHRC funded SENESCHAL project aims to make vocabularies available online as Semantic Web resources. The project begins with the current Heritage Data vocabularies and intends to make other vocabularies available.

In the next phase, RESTful web services will be established to make the vocabulary resources accessible and searchable. This will include provision to allow users to suggest new terms. A series of case studies will explore use of these web services as part of indexing tools and widgets.

SENESCHAL is coordinated by the Hypermedia Research Unit at the University of South Wales, together with the Archaeology Data Service as Co-Investigators. Project collaborators include English Heritage, RCAHMS, RCHAMW, the Bespoke Historic Environment Record User Group and Wessex Archaeology Ltd.

For more information: http://www.heritagedata.org/blog/about-heritage-data/seneschal/

Comments and suggestions are very welcome via email or the heritagedata blog
Contact: ceri.binding at southwales.ac.uk

Vocabulary contacts
EH: Phil Carlisle Philip.Carlisle at english-heritage.org.uk
RCAHMS: Peter McKeague Peter.McKeague at rcahms.gov.uk
RCAHMW: Dave Thomas david.thomas at rcahmw.gov.uk


Professor Douglas Tudhope
Hypermedia Research Unit
University of South Wales
Pontypridd CF37 1DL
Wales, UK
Tel +44 (0) 1443-483609
Fax +44 (0) 1443-482715
http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/