Vocabularies for classicists

Classicists working on digital projects that involve data are encouraged to link their data to the semantic web. If you are new to the topic, start here (Linked open data).

In thinking about new vocabularies, whether for subjects, predicates, or objects of triples, one should begin with a survey of what already exists. By using one another's vocabularies, we reinforce the interoperability, and therefore utility, of our data. And it saves the time of having to reinvent the wheel. Below are a selection of vocabularies that may be useful to classicists. A master list of datasets is maintained by ckan's Data Hub, and is an excellent place to look for obscure ontologies and controlled vocabularies. Datasets that are especially helpful for scholars of premodernity are here:

General

• RDF Vocabulary Description Language, also known as RDF Schema (RDFS)
• Web Ontology Language (OWL)
• Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)
• Dublin Core
• Friend of a Friend
• Wikipedia
• DBPedia
• Cayless, ontology for Linked Ancient World Data (Apr. 2013: preliminary notes for material that will eventually populate LAWD.info)

See a list of others here. See here for a visual map.

Bibliography and Texts

It is helpful to understand something about the hierarchy of texts (such as the one adopted by Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records [FRBR]). Vocabularies describing ancient works in the abstract (under FRBR called works) will take a different approach than ones describing manuscripts, papyri, ostraca, etc. (under FRBR called items)

• FRBR-related efforts -- discusses semantic web ontologies that align with FRBR in its goals and reliance upon acronym nomenclature: CIDOC CRM, ABC, EAD, XOBIS
• FRBRoo -- an ontology that tries to synthesize ontologies and vocabulary embraced by libraries (FRBR) and museums (CIDOC CRM)
• Citation Ontology
• Linked LCCN
• Marc Codes List
• Open Annotation
• W3C Provenance Ontology
• SAWS Ontology for recording links within interrelated collections of texts

Note, that although the following are not vocabularies per se, they are important for the creation of vocabularies or RDF triples that involve ancient texts:

• Canonical Text Services (CTS)
• Perseus (uses CTS)

Geography

• NeoGeo Spatial Ontology
• Geonames
• Linked GeoData
• Pleiades Place/Location/Name Vocabulary
• Pleiades Places

Prosopography, persons

• VIAF
• ISNI
• Lexicon of Greek Personal Names

Objects

• Nomisma
• Papyri.info

Topics

• Library of Congress Authorities

For other examples of projects that use controlled vocabularies for linked open data, see the category listing as well as Very clean URIs.