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 International Authority File,19 for example, have added identifiers to Wikidata. Provide linked data support to researchers, academics, and other patrons wishing to expand the context of their own research and data or to develop web applications representing knowledge from their field. Engage scholars and communities working in underrepresented knowledge areas to help extend existing sets of knowledge in Wikidata. Explore and advocate for the use of Wikidata identifiers (“Q IDs”) or equivalent uniform resource identifiers (URIs) in library and archival systems, repositories, and platforms. Consider the use of Wikibase as a LOD store for local identifiers and authority-like data.

Wikidata is a largely volunteer community that leverages passion and enthusiasm. If through participation and experimentation libraries come to rely upon the infrastructure, they will want to assess their contributions to its growth and development within the context of their other official commitments and expenditures to Wikidata as a public good.

Introduction

In 2017, librarians at York University advanced a compelling use case for Wikidata when they began a project with ARL to work in partnership with Indigenous communities to create inclusive, culturally competent metadata about Indigenous communities and collections in Canada.20 The work is part of a response to the national calls to action issued in the 2015 final report of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Museums and archives, as sites of public memory, were called out as crucial spaces to advance reconciliation. The York project leaders chose a linked open data approach in order to share their work—which would involve original research and consultation with Indigenous communities to identify self-determined ARL White Paper on Wikidata: Opportunities and Recommendations