Insertion of metadata from Spanish libraries in Wikidata: a linked open data model

Abstract

The term ‘linked open data’ has become very common in the field of library science in recent years. This is due to the use that can be made of the metadata held by libraries around the world. There has been much discussion about releasing this information, but not other data such as where these institutions are physically located or details concerning the institutions themselves, so that they can also be used by any user. This information could be useful for searching the nearest libraries, accessing their media or consulting the identifiers they may have in other databases. The objective of this article is to show the procedure used to insert all libraries in Spain in a free database, with the intention that they are accessible all over the world. Using various free tools, the data was cleaned and 7861 new libraries were inserted into Wikidata, to later correct existing duplications and insert new fields. Finally, different possibilities of reusing the data are presented in Wikipedia, showing that these data can be useful for users who want to use it in the future