Linking Lost Jazz Shrines (LLJS) is an ongoing collaboration between the Weeksville Heritage Center and the Semantic Lab at Pratt Institute to investigate the application of linked open data technologies to the Weeksville Lost Jazz Shrines of Brooklyn (WLJSB) oral history collection. This rich collection documents Central Brooklyn’s cultural legacy of jazz history between the 1930s and 1960s.

The primary aim of the Equity in Action grant-funded project was to make the WLJSB archival collection more discoverable and accessible to researchers and the general public alike. The project also enriches and expands the existing network of jazz musicians developed by the Linked Jazz Project with an infusion of influential, yet lesser-known artists and the venues where they performed. The project has the potential to serve as a roadmap for similar projects aimed at transforming textual archival documents and other materials into linked data.

The initial phase of the LLJS project was conducted from January 2019 through August 2020 with generous support from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s “Collections as Data: Part to Whole” grant program. In 2020, the LLJS project received the A.R.T.’s New York Archives Archival Achievement award.

Watch a presentation by the project participants that details the workflows, Sélavy tool development, data modeling, and ethical decision-making involved in the transformation of textual archival documents into linked data.