The Artsdata Linked Open Data Ecosystem: A New Project for the Performing Arts

The Linked Digital Future initiative (LDFI), as we have known it until now, is giving way to an exciting new project, thanks to funding from the Canada Council of the Arts and the Government of Canada’s Canada Cultural Investment Fund and Community Services Recovery Fund. A project that will continue to enhance the discoverability of the performing arts, while growing and strengthening the community surrounding the Artsdata knowledge graph. We call it the Artsdata Linked Open Data Ecosystem.

Growing an Ecosystem

Since 2018, the LDFI has undergone two project phases. In the first phase, CAPACOA and its partners conducted action research and developed recommendations to create a linked open data ecosystem for the performing arts.

During the second phase, this plan was put into action. However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed efforts to harvest information about performing arts events. Partners focused instead on collecting information about organizations and venues. They also developed best practices for representing information about Indigenous artists, their works, and their artistic and cultural practices (learn more).

Now in 2023, the third phase marks the beginning of the Artsdata Linked Open Data Ecosystem. CAPACOA will unite with Culture Laval and all members of the Artsdata community group to help arts organizations and artists boost their digital presence by creating, linking, structuring and sharing machine-readable open data about their events and activities. The Artsdata knowledge graph –– Canada’s national open database for the arts sector –– will be central to this new project. Together, we will work to ensure that it will be sustainable over time and supported, governed and maintained by a community of users.

Leveraging an Ecosystem

Our upcoming work will notably focus on data partnerships involving the consumption of Artsdata linked open data in cultural calendars. This will demonstrate Artsdata’s capacity to reconcile, consolidate and leverage (i.e. make maximum use of) data from a diversity of sources.

We will also maintain services and activities that have proven successful – notably the Digital Discoverability Program and data model harmonization work with the international community.

Funding an Ecosystem

The Artsdata Linked Open Data Ecosystem will be made possible thanks to the continued financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and $1,125,000 from the Government of Canada’s Canada Cultural Investment Fund over a three-year period from 2023 to 2026.

Additionally, thanks to the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund (administered by the Canadian Red Cross), we have received $256,368 to support a project that will help us accelerate data-sharing across performing arts platforms.