Last edited 3 months ago
by Anna Lionetti

Share-VDE Activities and strands of work


This section is a summary of Share-VDE activities. If after clicking on a link to a page or a file you are requested to input your credentials, it means that the resource is available to Share-VDE members only.

Useful documentation

For new members, useful tools and information describing the main procedures and practicalities to get on board Share-VDE can be found at ShareVDEmembers:MembersArea.

Latest activities

The following activities track the major progresses in order to make Share-VDE evolve, as sketched in the presentation of the initiative.

  • As of September 2021, the new version Share-VDE 2.0 is live at https://svde.org with an enhanced Entity Discovery Portal and Linked Data Management System. The load of Share-VDE libraries’ data is being done progressively and currently the new web portal hosts a subset of the data of member institutions. If you want to discover the advanced functions of Share-VDE 2.0, the web portal at https://svde.org is the place to go.
  • Users external to Share-VDE are welcome to provide feedback on the discovery portal, report bugs and suggestions: reach out through the forum https://forum.svde.org/.
  • The linked data entity editor JCricket is being released in its initial version: the back-end APIs have been completed and the corresponding front-end functions are in progress, see the overview JCricket Cluster Knowledge Base editing functions.
  • After the installation of the new Share-VDE triple store, a small dataset has been loaded to initially test the new tool. It is named "SHAREVDE" and includes 899,845 quadruples created from the conversion of a subset of Berkeley Law Library original data. The triple store set-up includes two different methods for searching and viewing the data, ie.:
    • graphic user interface SPARQL UI Console at https://data-staging.svde.org: it's the graphic end user interface where the dataset loaded to the triple store can be selected; selecting "Query" in the user menu opens the query interface;
    • direct access to SPARQL Endpoint at https://data-staging.svde.org/sparql: it's the HTTP endpoint to run queries directly on the dataset.

To access the triple store and consult the data contact info@svde.org.

Share development team organisation

The numerous upgrades to the back-end and front-end infrastructures (see below) brought to the SVDE linked data management and entity discovery system 2.0 supported by the new version of the LOD Platform, that is the technology framework of the Share Family of initiatives.

The SVDE IT team has been restructured and enlarged in order to cope with the increasing complexity of the developments, meet the needs of the community and interconnect with several projects. There are several development sub-teams devoted to the main components of the system:

  • Infrastructure & Architecture (set-up and enhancement of the backbone of the system);
  • Clustering module (continuous optimisation of the core component for data processing);
  • SVDE Backend APIs (Database and Indexing, APIs development for Share Family portals, JCricket backend functions);
  • SVDE Frontend (design and creation of general frontend components, frontend Share Family portals implementation and interaction with backend, JCricket front-end functions);
  • BIBFRAME and RDF conversion (refactoring of the component that creates BIBFRAME / RDF data and that feeds SVDE triple store for SPARQL queries).

Overview of major developments

As far as the frontend infrastructure, the new SVDE 2.0 portal (www.svde.org) has been completed and its design was enhanced by the activities around the JCricket Cluster Knowledge Base editor, the requirements for the University of Pennsylvania localisation and for the Kubikat-LOD parallel pilot project. Based on this enhanced prototype, SVDE IT team has connected the new components of the frontend of the SVDE platform with the backend infrastructure. The same is being done for the ad hoc localisation for the University of Pennsylvania. The other skin portals foreseen are being prepared.

A complex diagram of the frontend development project has been created and will be used to generate and display SVDE portal and the connected skin portals. The naming of the infrastructure components in the diagram are arbitrary and respond to the metaphor of a big forest: it’s a way to avoid ambiguity within the various development teams working on SVDE. The names of the skins and tenants for users outside the development teams will reflect the names of the institutions. Please note that it’s a work in progress populated with a few placeholder data for demonstrative purposes; for this reason it might be unstable, it reflects the search and navigation functions though.

As far as the backend layer, the enhancements of the new user interface increased the dependencies between the features specific to each localisation of the SVDE frontend (i.e. SVDE general interface, Penn localisation, JCricket module, Kubikat-LOD pilot project etc.) and the underlying system components common to all of them, for example the search logic. This implied a deep revision of the SVDE backend layer that is now supported by a complex set of APIs.

Moreover, the Cluster Knowledge Base and the clustering module are being enhanced with new attributes and new controlled vocabularies as a result of the UI design, the revision of the backend infrastructure and the continuous work of the SEI - Sapientia Entity Identification working group.

Initial ideas for the implementation of the tenant infrastructure are being exchanged. Data from libraries of the Share Family would be grouped by similar domains or characteristics in ad hoc tenants of the software architecture. This would enable each tenant to manage the data independently, allowing in the same time an infrastructure for potential data exchange services.

Parallel work was done on the pilot Kubikat-LOD localisation of art libraries, supporting Kubikat-specific features. Kubikat-LOD pilot has been released on February 1st 2022 in its beta version. It represents the linked open data entity discovery platform containing the whole catalogues of the libraries belonging to the following four art history institutions:

  • Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Max-Planck-Institut (www.khi.fi.it)
  • Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (www.zikg.eu), funded by the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus, Wissenschaft und Kunst
  • Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte / Centre allemand d'histoire de l'art in Paris (dfk-paris.org), funded by Max Weber Stiftung - Foundation of German Humanities Institutes Abroad
  • Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Rome (www.biblhertz.it)

This is the result of the joint work of the Kubikat group of libraries that are envisaging a new tool for scholars, researchers and end users as well as for librarians to manage bibliographic resources.

SVDE team has been working on the procedure to fully automate the workflow for receiving updated MARC data from all SVDE member institutions. After the initial import of the MARC full catalogues of SVDE libraries done in 2019, the procedures for the ingestion in SVDE of subsequent regular updates of MARC data have been created and constantly refined for processing, enrichment and clustering in SVDE. However, the recent changes to the infrastructure of the system imposed to re-design the module managing delta updates, that will soon be completed.

SVDE participates to Linked Data for Production 3 project with two major tasks:

  1. build two-ways flow APIs to connect SVDE and Sinopia BIBFRAME cataloguing module. The first step has been done, i.e. the Sinopia team has built an API pipeline that pulls records built by Sinopia and the functioning has been tested by the SVDE team. Moreover, SVDE has analysed Sinopia documentation on the structure of records output from Sinopia: this will be the basis for SVDE to build the connector to import Sinopia records in SVDE. The initial sketch of how SVDE is envisaging to close the loop is available;
  2. provide the conversion and housing of PCC data in an ad hoc PCC data pool working as autonomous tenant, with a separated enriched CKB and ad hoc PCC URIs with dedicated namespace. SVDE has delivered PCC records converted in BIBFRAME for the initial load of approx 4.5 million MARC bibliographic records created by PCC libraries; regular updates are ongoing, on a monthly basis, for the duration of LD4P3.

The SVDE team is working on the development of the authority services, based on the analysis carried on by the working groups. The initial release of the authority control features has been delivered to Stanford University Libraries.

Members' activities with Share team

The list of SVDE members can be consulted at Share-VDE institutions.

The continuous cooperation between the SVDE IT team and the working groups of SVDE libraries brought several important results.

In the context of the SVDE AIMS-CKB working groups, SVDE has prepared the ground for JCricket Cluster Knowledge Base Editor and authority services developments: the design of the editor module has been completed as far as functions for user interaction with the module itself (see an example of the function merging two author clusters in one). SVDE IT team is currently working on a detailed analysis of authentication and permission functions. This is key for JCricket editing functions (e.g. definition of roles for users and actions that they can perform), but it’s also functional to SVDE in general as far as interaction with other skin portals/tenants is concerned.

Also, the analysis of authority services has been completed within the AIMS working group and SVDE team is analysing the integration with Wikidata and ISNI. Connected to authority services and interaction between SVDE and external sources, the PCC has launched the PCC Wikidata pilot. This pilot can be beneficial to SVDE interaction and data exchange with Wikidata, and Casalini Libri is taking part in the pilot with reference to SVDE, see the project page on Wikidata Casalini Libri. SVDE-Wikidata Interaction.

The revision of the entity model with the Sapientia Entity Identification (SEI) working group is a major achievement: SVDE model is a four layered adaptation of BIBFRAME comprising the entities svde:Opus | svde:Work | svde:Instance | svde:Item. This structure ensures interoperability with other environments using LRM-based models or pure BIBFRAME models.

Among the Share Family of library driven initiatives a new working group has started dedicated to the practical cooperation among the National Bibliographies. Considering the important presence of several National Libraries in the Share-VDE community and in the broader network of institutions that follow the progress of this initiative and of other Linked Open Data projects, this working group has been launched in order to study and address the needs of National Libraries and institutions that hold National Bibliographies in the framework of a shared entity discovery environment such as the Share Family of initiatives. Read the Executive summary of the National Bibliographies initiative.

Current goals

Among many work strands that the Share Family development staff is involved in, the current focus is on the enhancement of the whole Share-VDE and Share Family infrastructure, including:

  • the first version of the linked data entity editor JCricket, that will enable several actions on the clusters of entities saved in the SVDE Cluster Knowledge Base, including creation, modification, merge of clusters of works, of agents etc.;
  • third parties integration through the automated interaction between SVDE and external ILS/LSP such as FOLIO and Sinopia;
  • the creation of a SVDE ontology as outcome of the dedicated Sapientia Entity Identification working group;
  • further progresses on the developments of new tenants, skin portals and SVDE localisations;
  • continuously feeding the PCC data pool with regular updates of PCC records converted to linked data.


To read the latest updates issued to the Share Family community and track back previous progresses, see the Share Family News and updates page.

Events and conferences

Share-VDE fosters the participation of its members to conferences, events and initiatives of interest for the community. The dedicated sub-group Library Community Events monitors the events in the library community and evaluates which ones are appropriate to submit to. The aim of this group is to put SVDE member libraries in the foreground as the protagonists of SVDE initiative itself, share outcomes, disseminate results and possibly expand the SVDE community as an effect of the group activity.

An internal calendar is continuously updated with the relevant events (see below) and the output of participation to initiatives, events and presentations are collected in the section dedicated to articles and resources.

Screenshot from the internal calendar of events monitored by the Library Community Events sub-group
https://wiki.share-vde.org/wiki/ShareVDE:Activities
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