2021-05-19

• Brief introductions, welcoming new/familiar faces
  • Josh Conrad - GRA at Architecture Library
  • Sheila Torres-Blank - Music cataloger at Texas State

• summer meeting schedule
  • Would it be virtual?
    • Yes, at least for the Summer
  • Does it work 4th Wednesday of the month work?
    • General agreement for June and July. Will follow up for August because it is the first day of classes and might be complicated
    • Paloma will send updated calendar invite

Prompt questions shared with group in advance:

• Have you experimented with QuickStatements yet, and if so, what are your findings thus far?
• Do you have specific questions or challenges with batch updates/processing?

We didn't spend time discussing this topic, as attendees did not have updates to share or specific questions on their mind.

• Prompt questions shared with group in advance:
  • What goals have you set or outcomes are you hoping/expecting to see with your Wikidata projects?

• Have you found examples of linked data or wikidata project assessment done by others, or resources that might help us think more concretely about how to evaluate such projects? 

  • Analysis of 2018 International Linked Data Survey for Implementers - Code4Lib article about results of a 2018 OCLC Research survey includes information about success metrics for linked data projects

  • Outcome Based Evaluation slide deck from 2017

  • Measure Your Impact: Getting Started with Outcome-Based Evaluations library-specific webinar from 2016 (~1hr duration)

•  Mary and Nichole – A lot of interest in local assessment. Nichole has set up a google analytics for the entities she is linking to in wikidata, and she has seen very slightly raise on hits. They have been discussing the topic a lot, and found difficulty on figuring out how to perform further assessment
  • Big question – how to use familiar tools for analytics like Google Analytics to measure impact of wikidata projects? 
•  Paloma – During the last PCC Wikidata pilot meeting there was a brief discussion on the chat regarding assessment for pilot projects and different institutions where showing different assessment concerns based on their project goals
  • Staff development and training, getting library staff to feel comfortable with wikidata and linked data. No interest on numbers
  • Using the PCC wikidata pilot dashboard to collect statistics
  • Enhance access to collections
• Nichole - good point, because their main goal was also to get staff familiar with wikidata and linked data, so in that sense, that goal has been achieved. Their second goal was to enhance collection description. Example of how the google search results and knowledge graph changed after she did the wikidata link. How do you measure that?
• Katie – Makes sense. Even this group's main goal is to be more comfortable with linked data. How do we quantify that to show the value of what we are doing? Should this be more central to job duties? We all have invested a lot of efforts and resources, and would like to show the administration the value of doing it
• Melanie – UT Libraries staff reviewing their job descriptions and this conversation helps to think about roles evaluation on that direction
• Beth (from chat) – Quick search for term assessment in SAA conference schedule. Only hit was S15 on Building a National Finding Adi Network. No hits with "wiki"
• Nichole – With new version of ArchivesSpace there might be a chance at making linked data more central to their workflows
• Beth – What about TARO?
• How does linked data fit within TARO's development roadmap? This new grant implies a lot of data clean up and standardization. Devon has been doing a lot of good work, and suggesting authorities to move forward with, but there has not been any talk about wikidata
• Mandy (from chat) – I think that the new TARO is built off MySQL, which could allow for wiki-data reconciliation in the future
• Melanie – contributions to a larger authority control that can be used by the larger community might be another angle to look at using production statistics
• Mary – Someone on the PCC Wikidata pilot meeting mention "But we shouldn't be thinking about numbers..." and everybody was like "... well that is what the administration cares about"
• Melanie – seems like we are starting to find some common threads to work on: job duties review, projects contributing to larger collaborative projects (quantitative assessment). We can share these with Krystal before she join us in June, so she gets the big picture. She is also welcome to review the recording
• Beth – would be interested in knowing what types of questions she might have for us: Access impact, staff contributions.
  • Melanie – yeah, difference between internal goals and external goals
  • Mary – visibility would be more obvious once the ILSs are ready to pull in data from wikidata
  • Melanie – Interest in following up with ExLibris IGELU/ELUNA Linked Data Working Group and learn more about their roadmap. ExLibris is looking at integrating the BIBFRAME editor on Alma
    • Paloma – yeah, maybe we could invite the chairs of the IGELU/ELUNA linked data working group as guest speakers for a future meeting
  • Paloma – there is a strong connection between assessment and the products we use locally for collection discovery. Without local discovery being able to leverage our linked data efforts, we are still in the stage of how to justify our efforts. We started many years ago arguing that we needed to get ready and be prepared, but as it takes longer and longer for linked data to be implemented on a standardized way, the argument gets more and more hazy
    • Melanie – we need a critical mass!
  • Katie – Even when you have some hands-on experience, they are always side projects. Would be good for it to be part of the regular job, and feeling that there might be some questions that we could bring to Krystal that will help in that direction, but not sure what those questions are
  • Melanie – UT Libraries migrating to Islandora 8 (native RDF data) – timeline is expected to be 1 year or less. Melanie and Mandy on the metadata working group. Once implemented, this would be another area where linked data work will become more central to metadata creators at UT Libraries. Arizona State University might be one of the only places that have it already in production
• Beth – interested in assessment of linked data from the point of view of public services
  • Nancy – feels like they will get benefits of it, and interested in learning on what is happening behind the scenes

Looking ahead

Melanie/Paloma

• Krystal Wyatt-Baxter (Head of Assessment and Communication, UT Libraries) will join our next meeting, June 23.

• Any volunteers to facilitate future sessions?
  • July 28 – Katie facilitating, Beth notetaking and Josh presenting
• Josh – Working with reconciling buildings and people. A lot of spatial data. Also working on activities and . Using ArcGIS for exploring architecture collections using buildings, events/activities, persons/organizations. Basically an extension of the geodata portal of UT Libraries. Project still underdevelopment, but Josh will do a show and tell in a future meeting
• Katie – working with Michael S. and Jessica T. to figure out a way to implement the project in a sustainable way
• Beth – potential to teach students to engage with our data by adding architecture data sets to wikidata. Example of a faculty project in development
• Scheduling Josh to present on the project for the July meeting (perfect timing because he will be wrapping up the project in July). Josh already did a presentation 2 years ago when they were starting the project

• Other topics for the future
  • How do we build services to support linked data projects happening on campus?