For years, librarians have been hearing promises about the potential of linked data and identity management to transform workflows and enhance discoverability, but most catalogers have had little opportunity to put these ideas into practice, particularly those working at institutions without extensive resources for development of emerging metadata technologies. This presentation, drawing on the presenters’ recent project to rescue an endangered dataset documenting their institution’s early women faculty, will discuss low-barrier approaches to linked data and identity management, incorporating Wikidata and participation in the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Entity Management Cooperative (EMCO). In 2024, the metadata team learned that, due to security concerns, the library’s technology department would be taking down a local database that contained extensive information about the often-overlooked women faculty who formed the backbone of the institution in its early years as a teaching college. The team saw this as an opportunity to rescue this data and give it new visibility in the larger information ecosystem of Wikidata. The presenters will share their experience working on this EMCO pilot project, and will provide practical strategies and tools for sharing and visualizing institutionally important data in Wikidata that attendees can apply to their own projects.
