While ARL convened this task force to inform its membership as the principal audience, the recommendations in this white paper apply to libraries well beyond the Association. The recommendations are meant for individual librarians wishing to explore the Wikidata community, and for library departments and organizations wishing to consider structural commitments to this open data source in the advancement of their work.
Contributors to this paper during the public comment period raised serious concerns about library participation (both individual and organizational) in a community with no formal governance or leadership, where systemic social power dynamics can reign and where sustainability and persistence are at risk. These concerns, acknowledged and addressed to the extent practicable, might provide a fruitful research agenda for further conversation. Tangibly, one reviewer asked whether we can advise on the best way to proceed with Wikidata involvement, which we look forward to exploring with more data.
In the meantime, this paper’s recommendations are based upon use cases in cultural heritage documentation, open scholarly communication, archival and bibliographic discovery—in particular through collaborative description with communities represented in our collections.
Recommendations
Work on Wikidata is primarily contributed by individual volunteer contributors, who have organized their editing and data-modeling efforts in thematic projects, such as cultural heritage.11 Contributing to these projects provides a way to interlink Wikidata to sources of library data. Wikidata’s rise in linked open data communities also provides an opportunity for libraries to get involved in contributing to modeling and data efforts on a larger scale.12
