Linked Data

Responding to interest evident in the library community and beyond, ISNI is in the process of making available key ISNI metadata in several Linked Data formats. The metadata covers both person- and organization- or group-related ISNI identifiers and consists of a subset of the information describing each ISNI formally assigned in the ISNI database.

The Linked Data itself is available in both RDF/XML and JSON-LD formats. The subset of data elements included can be viewed in the tables below. The data itself is provided under a CC0 licence.

The ISNI Linked Data rollout will take place in two phases. In Phase 1, operational now, the data itself has been made publicly available for download and review via a number of mechanisms detailed below.

In Phase 2, comprehensive content negotiation facilities will be added, allowing external systems to interrogate and link to the Linked Data resource in a fully automated fashion.

Accessing the data

URI patterns

The dataset uses URIs of the form:

For entities, i.e. persons and organizations or groups: https://isni.org/isni/{ISNI} where ISNI is the 16 digit identifier. For example, https://isni.org/isni/0000000080456315

 

https://isni.org/isni/{ISNI} identifies the entity, i.e. the person, organization or group

https://isni.org/isni/{ISNI}/about identifies the description of the entity

https://isni.org/isni/{ISNI}/about.{ext} , for example https://isni.org/isni/{ISNI}/about.rdf identifies the RDF/XML description of the entity

 

For metadata terms in the ISNI ontology, https://isni.org/ontology#{term}. For example, https://isni.org/ontology#hasDeprecatedISNI

Data model

ISNI RDF data model

Person

Person entity table
RDF property Expected value/range Definition Cardinality
rdfs:label Literal 16 digit ISNI presented as stated in the ISNI ISO standard, e.g. ISNI 0000 0000 8045 6315 1
rdf:type Class Always schema:Person 1
schema:alternateName Literal Name of the public identity 1..*
schema:birthDate Literal Year of birth of the public identity 0..1
schema:deathDate Literal Year of death of the public identity 0..1
schema:identifier Class Always schema:PropertyValue 1
isni:hasDeprecatedISNI Literal Deprecated ISNI; 16 digits with no space 0..*
owl:sameAs Class Entity identified by a URI and modelled as a real world object 0..*
madsrdf:isIdentifiedByAuthority Class Entity identified by a URI and modelled as an authority/skos:Concept 0..*
dcterms:source Class Entity identified by a non machine actionable URI, i.e. a URL 0..*

Organization or Group

Organization or group entity table
RDF property Expected value/range Definition Cardinality
rdfs:label Literal 16 digit ISNI presented as stated in the ISNI ISO standard, e.g. ISNI 0000 0001 2353 1945 1
rdf:type Class Always schema:Organization 1
schema:alternateName Literal Name of the public identity 1..*
schema:identifier Class Always schema:PropertyValue 1
isni:hasDeprecatedISNI Literal Deprecated ISNI; 16 digits with no space 0..*
owl:sameAs Class Entity identified by a URI and modelled as a real world object  0..*
madsrdf:isIdentifiedByAuthority Class Entity identified by a URI and modelled as an authority/skos:Concept 0..*
dcterms:source Class Entity identified by a non machine actionable URI, i.e. a URL 0..*

Property Value

Always a blank node

Property value table
RDF property Expected value/range Definition Cardinality
rdf:type Class schema:PropertyValue 1
schema:propertyID Class Always the Wikidata identifier for the ISNI schema, i.e. http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q423048 1
schema:value Literal 16 digit ISNI – no blank spaces 1
 

Expressing deprecation

The model uses the isni specific property isni:hasDeprecatedISNI , for example:

<https://isni.org/isni/0000000121394035>  isni:hasDeprecatedISNI "000000012407618X" .

where ISNI 0000 0001 2407 618X is is the deprecated ISNI for the entity with the assigned ISNI 0000 0001 2139 4035

 

In addition to the isni:hasDeprecatedISNI property, the following construct is also used:

<https://isni.org/isni/000000012407618X>

owl:deprecated  "true”^^xsd:Boolean" ;

rdfs:comment    "this identifier is deprecated. See rdfs:seeAlso link for new identifier" ;

rdfs:seeAlso        <https://isni.org/isni/0000000121394035> .

Linking to external resources

The model uses three different properties to establish relationships with external resources:

  • owl:sameAs if the external resource has been modelled as a real world object (RWO). For example, Wikidata resources identified by URIs with the pattern http://www.wikidata.org/entity/{ID}

  • madsrdf:isIdentifiedByAuthority if the external resource has been modelled as an Authority, i.e. a document about a Thing rather than the Thing itself. For example, Library of Congress resources identified by URIs with the pattern http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/{ID} or data.bnf.fr resources identified by URIs with the pattern http://data.bnf.fr/{ID}

  • dcterms:source if the URI is a URL, i.e. points to a webpage with no machine actionable data.

The dataset currently includes links to: LC/NACO, data.bnf.fr, wikidata, musicbrainz, National Library of Korea and National Assembly Library of Korea resources, where they exist in the ISNI database. 

 

Feedback or questions on ISNI's Linked Data plans are very welcome; please let us have any responses via [email protected]