DH Benelux is an initiative that aims to further the collaboration between Digital Humanities activities in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The conference serves as a platform for the community of interdisciplinary DH researchers to meet, present, and discuss their latest research findings and to demonstrate tools and projects.

We had the opportunity to attend the online conference this year in which several Linked Open Data presentations were introduced. In particular, a pilot project from the Amsterdam Centre for the Study of the Golden Age (University of Amsterdam) based in early modern Dutch literature to provide a working example of the synergy that can be achieved by combining multiple data sets using Semantic Web technology. The project centers around the Panpoëticon Batavûm, an early eighteenth century portrait gallery of Dutch writers, initiated by the painter Arnoud van Halen (1673-1732) and continued by others.

During the presentation, we identified that both repositories could be linked to enrich both catalogues. As a result, a first approach have identified about 100 authors that have been linked as is shown in their website. See, for instance, http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/onstage/persons/2.

We are looking forward to including more links so as to enrich both repositories as well as to provide new visualizations.

References

Nijboer, Harm, Van Deinsen, Lieke, Brouwer, Judith, Van Wissen, Leon, Blom, Frans, & Van Strien, Ton. (2020, June). Using Linked Data to track processes of canonization in early modern Dutch literature. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3875652