Photo Archives and Linked Open Data. The Added Value

Abstract

In the last two decades, cultural heritage institutions have been revisiting the way they publish their data. Due to the rise of Semantic Web technologies and graph-based search engines, the shift in the technology stack has required many to reconsider also the way their data were organised. The appreciable byproduct of this phenomenon has been the development of data literacy skills among cataloguers, archivists, and collection managers, who were in turn promised a revamp of the institution's image in terms of authoritativeness (due to the improved data quality) and attractiveness towards patrons (due to the enhanced search capabilities). In this article we describe how photo archives have embraced such a new paradigm, and we discuss benefits and limitations, moving from a representative example, i.e., ZERI & LODe, a project devoted to the publication of the catalogue of the Federico Zeri Photo Archive into Linked Open Data. The focus of the analysis is the (missed?) added value promised by Semantic Web technologies and the Open Data business model to cataloguers, scholars, and arts enthusiasts.