Flanders Arts Institute is linking its database with WikiMedia
Do you know WikiMedia? It’s a a collaboratively edited knowledge base, intended to provide a common source of data which can be used by projects such as Wikipedia. Flanders Arts Institute, together with Packed and Romaine, a fantastic WikiMedia volunteer, started to link together the Flanders Arts Institute database with the WikiData database.
We started the process, which is also documented on wikimedia, by focusing on venues for theatre performances. I exported our venues data as triples, with a small script that you can consult on Github.
In the mean time, Romaine pleaded with the WikiData community that Flanders Arts Institute could become a reference point. In a way, this is asking the community to acknowledge that Flanders Arts Institute has an authorative database (for the moment, at least for venues). I am very happy to see that this request was granted, and that from now on, Flanders Arts Institute can be referenced in WikiData.
As an example, consider the wikipedia page of the KVS (Royal Flemish Theatre). It has a reference to the wikidata record of the Royal Flemish Theatre. And now, that wikidata record can cite the Flanders Arts Institute database as an authorative source:
I am very happy with this first result. This creates many new opportunities. As an example, the PSS-archi identifier offers more information that we at Flanders Arts Institute would not store in our database, e.g. pictures and information about the architect. This nicely complements the list of theatre performances in the KVS that Flanders Arts Institute is offering on our page.
Are you interested in the technical challenges that we tackle at Flanders Arts Institute? Follow me on Medium (Tom R.) and Twitter (ruettet) to keep up to date!
