Experiment: Wikibase for collection data mgmt

[kgrons]

💡: The Carnegie Hall Archives is undertaking an exploratory project to understand how using Wikibase may help manage some of our data. Wikibase is the software that Wikidata runs on. Anyone can set up their own instance of a Wikibase to house their data. Thanks to this WikiEdu Beginner's course, we have a better grasp on what we can query to pull in to a local Wikibase from Wikidata and have a better basis to understand what might be useful to contribute back out to Wikidata after a standalone Wikibase is established.

One collection that we think will most benefit from a Wikibase instance (and possible collaborative Wikiproject) is our Tenants and Studios Collection. Currently, this collection data lives in a spreadsheet that lists individuals and groups that lived and/or worked in artist studios that no longer exist in Carnegie Hall’s current configuration.

While this spreadsheet format is acceptable, we want to model the collection data semantically to increase usability and discover connections in the data that is not possible using a spreadsheet. Creating items for names and studios would allow more control over the structure and visibility of the information, as well as allow for us to capture spatial and temporal variances over the years that are not easily described or captured in flat or relational data structures. Now that we understand what data is useful to push to Wikidata and which information should be kept as a local resource, we can better create and edit items for research and reference purposes.

We ultimately envision a Wikibase instance for the Tenants and Studios Collection as an opportunity to combine Carnegie Hall’s history with the data and stories of external resources and academics.

FYI - a version of this text appears in a post by @lmbarrier & me on the Wiki Education blog