Jul 23, 2017

Archives and Wikipedia: can structured links help make resources easier to find?

Germany provides much interesting thinking on linking information. Below, Odendahl, posting on Open Edition, shares a suggestion for referencing archives on Wikipedia in an article entitled "Archivquellen einheitlich in der Wikipedia verlinken".  (click here for Google Translate).

We'd like, he says, to see our archives used.

Why not have an easy and yet rigorously formatted way to share archives?

The format that he suggests using in Wikipedia is:

{{Archivquelle
|sammlung=
|bestand=
|dossier=
|dokument=
|signatur=
|titel=
|datum=
|institution=
|link=
}}

It seems like this (or something like this) could be a very useful addition. 

Take, for example the International Research Portal for Records Related to Nazi-Era Cultural Property that is hosted by the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI).  

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Wikipedia (and this Wikidata and Dbpedia) for each archive referenced, along with direct links to the database on Wikipedia? It might make it easier for people who don't know about EHRI or the Portal to find the information, and there doesn't seem to be any downside.

(As of this writing the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure had a Wikidata ID but not yet a Wikipedia page.)

What do you think?

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