SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE “LINKING THE MIDDLE AGES” WORKSHOP (MAY 11-12, 2015) at the University of Texas at Austin

In May 2015 the CLIR/Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellows in Medieval Data Curation convened a two-day workshop on the sharing and publishing of linked open data (LOD). Funded by a CLIR/Mellon microgrant, the workshop brought together librarians, technologists, and scholars to exchange ideas on the challenges posed to medievalists in sharing data on digital platforms. More than thirty experts took part in the workshop, which was held at The University of Texas at Austin on May 11-12, 2015. Participants presented their work in linked open data operational sites and took part in discussions about the obstacles and opportunities of LOD in three areas: research, teaching, and publication. This paper documents the possibilities and problems of applying LOD in medieval studies. It focuses specifically on its application to the field’s data, which requires medievalists to work together with librarians and technologists, and considers a technical infrastructure that can maintain and proliferate this type of collaborative work.