Named Entity Disambiguation for Archival Collections: Metadata, Wikidata, and Linked Data

Representing archival metadata as linked data can increase the findability and usability of items, and linked data sources such as Wikidata can be used to further enrich existing collection metadata. However, a central challenge to this process is the named entity disambiguation or entity linking that is required to ensure that the named entities in a collection are being properly matched to Wikidata entities so that any additional metadata is applied correctly. This paper details our experimentation with one entity linking system called OpenTapioca, which was chosen for its use of Wikidata and its accessibility to librarians and archivists with minimal technical intervention. We discuss the results of using OpenTapioca for named entity disambiguation on the Belfer Cylinders Collection from the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University, highlighting the successes and limitations of the system and of using Wikidata as a knowledge base.