The e-depot for Dutch archaeology started as a project at Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) in 2004 and developed into a successful service, which has ever since been part of the national archaeological data workflow of the Netherlands. While continuously processing archaeological datasets and publications and developing expertise regarding data preservation, various developments are taking place in the data landscape and direct involvement is necessary to ensure that the needs of the designated community are best met. Standard protocols must be defined for the processing of data with the best guarantees for long-term preservation and accessibility. Monitoring the actual use of file formats and the use of their significant characteristics within specific scientific disciplines is needed to keep strategies upto-date. National developments include the definition of a national metadata exchange protocol, its accommodation in the DANS EASY self-deposit archive and its role in the central channelling of information submission. In an international context, projects such as ARIADNE and PARTHENOS enable further developments regarding data preservation and dissemination. The opportunities provided by such international projects enriched the data by improving options for data reuse, including the implementation of a map-based search facility on DANS EASY. The projects also provide a platform for sharing of expertise via international collaboration. This paper details the positioning of the data archive in the research data cycle and presents examples of the data enrichment enabled by collaboration within international projects.

No abstract

No abstract

The Dutch Historical Censuses (1795–1971) contain statistics that describe almost two centuries of History in the Netherlands. These censuses were conducted once every 10 years (with some exceptions) from 1795 to 1971. Researchers have used its wealth of demographic, occupational, and housing information to answer fundamental questions in social economic history. However, accessing these data has traditionally been a time consuming and knowledge intensive task. In this paper, we describe the outcomes of the cedar project, which make access to the digitized assets of the Dutch Historical Censuses easier, faster, and more reliable. This is achieved by using the data publishing paradigm of Linked Data from the Semantic Web. We use a digitized sample of 2,288 census tables to produce a linked dataset of more than 6.8 million statistical observations. The dataset is modeled using the rdf Data Cube, Open Annotation, and prov vocabularies. The contributions of representing this dataset as Linked Data are: (1) a uniform database interface for efficient querying of census data; (2) a standardized and reproducible data harmonization workflow; and (3) an augmentation of the dataset through richer connections to related resources on the Web.

No abstract