Identifying community requirements for Linked Humanities Data infrastructures

Abstract

• It is likely that the application of LOD approaches to the Humanities will result in large, rich, heterogeneous datasets with huge research potential, but in turn raise a considerable challenge: how can these datasets be managed and published in forms that are flexible, scalable, interoperable and, critically, usable and sustainable? Several infrastructures exist that aim to address this issue, but each come with challenges of their own, including the balance between the need for off-the-shelf front-end solutions and for APIs that can support custom user interfaces, including explorable data visualisations. Having faced these challenges in our use of Arches (https://www.archesproject.org/) for the Tools of Knowledge (https://toolsofknowledge.org/) project database, we sought to harness the knowledge and experience of the Pelagios and Linked Pasts communities to establish requirements for an optimum system. As a foundation for this research, we are organising an activity at the annual Linked Pasts symposium (https://www.seadda.eu/?p=180, December 2022) to generate discussion around the topic, which will take place both asynchronously and in person. Our results will form the basis of a white paper, to be shared with the Pelagios community for further input and refinement. Our contribution to this panel will take a speculative design approach to our findings, envisaging a potential future system for managing and publishing large, heterogeneous Linked Humanities Data, which meets this community's needs. In addition, we propose to reflect upon our experiences of engaging in community-led, collaborative research, as well as the learning opportunities provided by knowledge sharing among the Pelagios Network.