ADL GazetteerA Library – Faculty Collaboration

STKO Lab

Project Goal:•To build a linked-data place name thesaurus with geometries, tightly controlled place types, and temporal awareness

Definitions:• Gazetteer: a placename dictionary in which each entry has a spatial

reference that can be mapped• Geometries: digital representations of points, lines, and polygons• Place types: a hierarchical ontology in which to categorize locations.

e.g.: populated places, cities, mountains, hydrologic features

Backgound• Born to enable spatial search during Alexandria Digital Library era

(1994 – 2006)• Overtaken by map-based search c. 2004• The Yelp Paradigm• Splippy maps

• The Great Recession: 2008• STKO Lab founded 2011

Reviving the Gazetteer• 2012: post-doc attempts to lift with public documents• 2013: missing datafile found in remnants of ADL. Jano lifts

postGRESql Gazetteer• 2014-15: • Matched to Natural Earth Data boundaries• Placenames refreshed from BGN’s GNIS (domestic)

• Working on NGA’s GEOnet (foreign)• Triplified (converted to RDF linked-data)• geoSPARQL endpoint• Browse/Search interface

http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/kyyiv_4193851rdf:type: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ONT/ADL#capitalsgeosparql:hasGeometry: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/kyyiv_4193851_g_54e19c9589bf9ns0:hasAlternateName: Kijowns1:hasAlternateName: Kiyevns2:hasAlternateName: Kievns3:hasAlternateName: Kyyivns4:hasAlternateName: Kiewns5:hasAlternateName: Kiefns6:hasAlternateName: Kiyivns7:hasAlternateName: Kijewns8:hasDescription: ns9:hasEntryDate: 1998-12-03ns10:hasModificationDate: 2004-02-25ns11:hasSchema: ADL Feature Type Thesaurusns12:onPlanet: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/earthns13:centerLongitude: 30.516666ns14:centerLatitude: 50.433334ns15:geomType: Pointgn:parentFeature: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/administrativeunitn_28554ns16:hasPrimaryName: Kyyiv - Ukrainens17:hasRelatedFeature: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/utm_grid_ua28_3192537ns18:hasRelatedFeature: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/jog_sheet_number_nm36_0_6564841ns19:hasRelatedFeature: http://adl-gazetteer.geog.ucsb.edu/ADL/ukraine_9947817

Next steps:• Update feature type thesaurus• Fix obvious mistakes• Missing root node• Oil platforms are water bodies

• Modernize the ontology• Train library staff to maintain vocabulary

achievable

Next steps• Integrate into ADRL Fedora repository metadata

schemas•Adopt as spatial facet in Blacklight searches

aspirational