Forward Linking: Building Relationships within the Cultural Data Ecosystem

Dr. Jim Clifford

In Collaboration with Susan Brown (PI, U of Guelph), Constance Crompton, Camille Callison, Clare Appavoo, Dean Seeman, Emmanuel Chateau Dutier, James MacGregor, John Aspler, Jon Bath, Kim Martin, Lisa Goddard, Marcello Vitali Rosati, Michael Eberle-Sinatra, Sharon Farnel, Stacy Allison-Cassin, William Turkel, et al.

Forward Linking is a pilot project to transform how cultural materials are shared online, building on the work of the LINKS CFI project that created the digital infrastructure for scholarly linked open data in the humanities. 

Galleries, libraries, archives and museums collect many digital cultural resources, such as digitized manuscripts, oral history archives, virtual reality experiences, digital art collections and learning tools. However, these materials are stored on websites that are often isolated from each other and from scholarly contexts. 

Under the Forward Linking partnership, experts in culture and heritage, digital scholarship and information science will explore ways of interlinking digital cultural resources across organizations sustainably and equitably. The project will make it easier for people to find, use and benefit from the information.