Page:ARL White Paper on Wikidata Opportunities and Recommendations.pdf/29

 Libraries' participation in the creation and enhancement of Wikidata items related to their unique collections is an area of great potential. Providing a presence in Wikidata for creators of archival collections (corporate body, person, or family responsible for the creation/compilation of the works), and people and organizations represented in those collections, may help facilitate discoverability of the materials as well as their connection to materials in other repositories.

"...Wikidata has the potential to be an important part of the linked data ecosystem for authorities."

At the same time, the data in Wikidata is connected to external data sources, many of which were created through national libraries. Making these connections not only enriches the data, but it also aids in disambiguating concepts. Already large sets of identifiers from such data sources as the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF), the German National Library GND, and the National Library of France SUDOC have been extensively matched. The interconnection between Wikidata and trusted external data sources and schemas58 bolsters Wikidata as a trustworthy conveyor of data.

However, an area that will need further development is finding ways to increase the ease and speed of creating items in Wikidata. Even with the use of existing tools it is cumbersome to create items with a full set of associated properties. Community development of application profiles containing practical, base element sets for common library-related materials would aid in the utility of Wikidata and its place within library workflows. Furthermore, it would help to ensure a consistent application of data across users in libraries and other cultural heritage institutions.

A variety of projects described below demonstrate that Wikidata has the potential to be an important part of the linked data ecosystem for authorities. Smaller institutions with limited resources could benefit from the free, community-driven, easy-to-use Wikidata interface to ARL White Paper on Wikidata: Opportunities and Recommendations