Since autumn 2014 the Swiss Federal archive and the archives of four cantons (Basel, Geneva, Neuchâtel, Valais) run a common platform and SPARQL endpoint called aLOD (opens new window), where they experiment with providing archival data as Linked Data.

The goal of the prototype is to understand the requirements and opportunities of providing archival information as Linked Data. The primary goals of the product are:

• explore opportunities of Linked Data for archives
• understand the technical requirements for creating and providing Linked Data
• develop best practices for publishing archival data as Linked Data
• test the value of integrating data about related topics from multiple, decentralized sources
• with a clear focus on improving ease of access for the users of these archives
• share the know-how with other archives worldwide

Zazuko was chosen as technical partner for this project.

Implemented tasks

• Transform legacy data (mainly stored in SQL) to Linked Data using Open Source tools, in close collaboration with our stakeholders
• Solr/Lucene indexes for textual content for highly performant search (accessible via SPARQL)
• Expose data on data.alod.ch (opens new window) using Trifid
• Interlink the data with external reference data sets like GND (opens new window) (German: Gemeinsame Normdatei, also known as: Universal Authority File).
• Provide a powerful HTML5 based search interface (opens new window), available as Open Source Software Zack (opens new window).