Linked Ancient World Data Institute

New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) hosted the Linked Ancient World Data Institute (LAWDI) from May 31st to June 2nd, 2012 in New York City. “Linked Open Data” is an approach to the creation of digital resources that emphasizes connections between diverse information on the basis of published and stable web addresses (URIs) that identify common concepts and individual items. LAWDI, funded by the Office of Digital Humanities of the National Endowment for Humanities, brought together an international faculty of practitioners working in the field of Linked Data with twenty attendees who are implementing or planning the creation of digital resources.

LAWDI is an ongoing program. A second session will take place from May 30 to June 1 of 2013 at Drew University in New Jersey (http://drew.edu). The announcement of that event will be forthcoming early next year. Please stay tuned!

LAWDI’s intellectual scope is the Ancient Mediterranean and Ancient Near East, two fields in which a large and increasing number of digital resources is available, with rich coverage of the archaeology, literature and history of these regions. Many of these resources publish stable URIs for their content and so are enabling links and re-use that create a varied research and publication environment. LAWDI attendees will learn how to take advantage of these resources and also how to contribute to the growing network of linked scholarly materials.

The organizers encourage interest from faculty, university staff, graduate students, librarians, museum professionals, archivists and others with a serious interest in creating digital resources for the study of the Ancient World. Applications to the 2012 sessions took the form of an attached (MS-Word, PDF or other common format) one-page statement of interest. They included a discussion of current or planned work undertaken by the applicant. As part of the curriculum, successful applicants presented their work and actively participated in conversations about topics presented by faculty and the other participants.

A report on the first LAWDI session has appeared in Information Standards Quarterly: http://dx.doi.org/10.3789/isqv24n2-3.2012.08.

LAWDI Organizers

 * Tom Elliott, Project Director, (ISAW)
 * Sebastian Heath, Project Manager (ISAW)
 * John Muccigrosso, Host of 2013 Session at Drew University (Drew U.)

LAWDI 2012 Faculty

 * Bridget Almas, Perseus Digital Library (Perseus)
 * Hugh Cayless, NYU Library/ISAW (Papyri.info)
 * Sean Gillies, NYU/ISAW (Pleiades)
 * Ethan Gruber, American Numismatic Society (ANS, Nomisma)
 * Corey Harper, New York University Libraries (LOD-LAM Page))
 * Leif Isaksen, Southampton (Pelagios)
 * Charles Jones, NYU/ISAW (Ancient World Online)
 * Eric Kansa, Alexandria Archive (Open Context)
 * Andrew Meadows, American Numismatic Society (ANS, Nomisma)
 * Daniel Pett, British Museum/Portable Antiquities Scheme (Portable Antiquities Scheme)
 * Andrew Reinhard, American School of Classical Studies (ASCSA Publications)
 * Christopher Warner, NYU/ISAW (Kernel Code)