National Gallery API

A SPARQL end-point to an rdf description of the National Gallery Collection is being developed. The data will be stored in a triple store rfom Garlic called 4Store and will be published in the form of URIs with data in human readable and machine readable form.

The data will potentially be mapped to more than one schema/ontology, though we will be specifically developing a mapping to the CIDOC CRM.

The RDF system that produced this data is still under development and public URIs are not yet available, so all references to rdf.ng-london.org.uk are not yet live. An example of a similar system, but with a project specific ontology can be seen here.

TODO, Notes and Thoughts

• The code presented here makes use of a few different ontologies listed below; rdf, rdfs, owl, crm, ngo.
• It will probably be good to extend this list to include standards such as LIDO.
• At this moment the values listed below may not be expressed in all the available forms.
• I will be good to look at ensuring a consistent description of a resource, which will mean that some information will be expressed multiple times with separate ontologies.
• If a user searches using rdf terms (label, comment, type, etc) they would find information, but the same information could also be sourced using other terms, for example from CIDOC CRM or LIDO.
• Establish how best to define degrees of confidence when using the CIDOC CRM. Prefixes on predicates. These are particularly important when describing dates and attributions, but can also be useful in orther areas.
  • Subject Predicate Object
  • Subject Probable Predicate Object
  • Subject Possible Predicate Object
• A few links to dbpedia have been added so far, but further links and data harvesting will be examined later.

Document head

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <rdf:RDF 
    xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" 
    xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#" 
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" 
    xmlns:crm="http://www.cidoc-crm.org/rdfs/cidoc_crm_v5.0.2_english_label.rdfs#" 
    xmlns:ngo="http://rdf.ng-london.org.uk/ontology/#" 
    xml:base="http://rdf.ng-london.org.uk/resource/">
  
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="">
    <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://rdf.ng-london.org.uk/ontology/"/>
    <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Ontology"/>
  </rdf:Description>

  <--! Various resource descriptions would be added here -->

</rdf:RDF>

XML Resource Description Examples

• National Gallery XML Example: Painting
• National Gallery XML Example: Production
• National Gallery XML Example: Artist
• National Gallery XML Example: Timespan