Linked Open Data in the NDE UI
This page describes the Linked Open Data functionality in the NDE UI. For information about this functionality in the Original UI, see Searching Linked Open Data - Person Entity.
Introduction
Primo VE uses Linked Open Data (LOD), which is structured data that utilizes Web technologies to link related information, to enable users to discover additional information regarding an entity and to relate it to materials provided by your library. The information about each entity is taken from the Library of Congress, Wikidata, and Wikipedia, and the mapping of entities to information about them is based on the Library of Congress and VIAF vocabularies. The supported entity types are:
- Person
- Organization
- Location
Information about an entity is displayed in the current UI language. In non-English languages, the entity's name also appears in English, in addition to appearing in the UI language. Other than for the name, we do not mix English in with other languages. If data does not exist in the UI language, nothing aside from the name in English is displayed.
For information regarding authority linking in Alma, see Working with Authority Records.
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Changes to Library of Congress (LC) information may take up to a week to appear in Primo VE.
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New and updated Wikidata pages take 1-2 days to appear in Primo VE.
Information Sources
The sources of the entity information are:
- The Library of Congress Names Authority (LCNAMES)
- Wikidata
- Wikipedia
For additional information, see Linked Data Enrichment Configuration in the Alma documentation.
Information from the Library of Congress (LC) is prioritized, and is augmented with information from Wikidata. This includes data such as the entity name, relevant dates, and the field of work. The description on the Entity Page is copied from Wikipedia. If a picture of the entity is available on Wikidata. it is copied from there. Hovering over the 
icon on the picture displays copyright information for it.
Entity-related information is updated on our servers within a week. This means that material removed by LC or Wikidata (for any reason) is automatically removed from the entity index within a reasonable amount of time after the originating site makes the change.
The match between LC and Wikidata is based on the Identifier property. In LC, this is the LC ID (taken from 010 a, z), and in Wikidata, it is the LC authority ID. We use the LCNAME identifier in Wikidata to match the LC data. We do not add authors from Wikidata if they do not exist in LC.
| Entity Property | LC Field | Wikidata Property |
|---|---|---|
|
Name |
100 a,q,c,d |
|
|
Identifier |
010 a,z |
Library of Congress authority ID (P244) |
|
Birth date |
046 f |
date of birth (P569) |
|
Birth place |
370 a |
place of birth (P19), country (P17) |
|
Death date |
046 g |
date of death (P570) |
|
Death place |
370 b |
place of death (P20), country (P17) |
|
Variants (see from tracing—Personal Name) |
400 a |
|
|
Link to Wikidata |
024 1 |
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/{id}.json |
|
Field of activity |
372 a |
field of work (P101) |
|
Occupation |
374 a |
occupation (P106) |
|
Short description |
N/A |
descriptions > "en" > value |
|
Link to image |
N/A |
image (P18) Supported formats: GIF, JPG, PNG Note that TIF/TIFF is not supported. |
|
Link to Wikipedia |
N/A |
sitelinks > "enwiki" > url |
|
IdRef ID |
N/A |
IdRef ID (P269) |
|
GND ID |
N/A |
GND ID (P227) |
Discovery of Entities
The UI includes the following elements to enable discovery of entities:
- Autocomplete suggestions – Suggestions of entities related to terms the user enters in a search query, which appear in the autocomplete list. If the user selects one of these suggestions, an Entity Page is opened for the selection.
- Info Cards – Brief information about entities related to a resource. This information appears in the Full Display page of a resource, in the Recommendations panel at the side of the page.
- Entity Pages – More detailed information about an entity, presented in a dedicated page. The page opens when the user selects an entity from either the autocomplete list in a search or an Info Card in the Full Display page of a record.
Autocomplete Suggestions
Entity suggestions are provided for search terms entered for simple and advanced searches. These suggestions appear at the bottom of the autocomplete list, below the suggestions that return results from the library catalog. Up to two suggestions may appear, and, when available, each suggestion includes the following data:
- Person – Picture (or default Person icon,
), name, birth (and death) years, and a short description of the person - Organization – Logo or picture (or default Organization icon,
), name, brief location information, and a short description of the organization - Location – Picture (or default Location icon,
), name, brief location information, and a short description
When the user begins to enter a search term, the system identifies possible matches for the term among entities of each type for which LOD information is available. Within each entity type, it ranks the suggestions as explained under Ranking Logic, below.
The two suggestions displayed are the highest-ranked suggestions available for their entity types. Persons are prioritized for the first suggestion, and organizations are prioritized for the second suggestion. Locations only appear if neither persons nor organizations are found.
Info Cards
Info Cards appear on the Full Display page in the Related Entities section of the Recommendations panel. A card showing the same brief description that would appear in an autocomplete suggestion is displayed for each entity that is associated with the record. Selecting the entity's name in a card opens the Entity Page of that entity.
Up to three entities can appear in the Related Entities section. If more than three entities are associated with the record, a More related entities option appears below the Info Cards. Selecting this option opens the full list of related entities in a sliding panel. Up to 40 entities can be included in the list in the sliding panel.
The Info Cards displayed in the Related Entities section are the highest-ranked suggestions available for their entity types (see Ranking Logic, below). Persons are prioritized for the first suggestion, organizations are prioritized for the second suggestion, and locations are prioritized for the third suggestion.
Within each entity type, if multiple entities have been found, the order of priority is:
- Creator
- Contributor
- Subject
In the following example, the journal is linked to the person who is the subject of the journal and the organization that published the journal (that is, the journal's creator).
Selecting the 
icon in a card opens additional information about the entity in a pop-up. (This information is also displayed in the Entity Page.)
Entity Pages
The Entity Page is a dedicated page that displays general information about an entity in the current UI language. If the current UI language is not English, the entity's name appears both in English and in the current UI language. Wikipedia information is derived from the Wikipedia in the current UI language.
In addition, this page includes sections with links to related resources in the library, such as titles by the person or titles about the organization. The sections offered vary slightly depending on the type of entity. Below each section is an Explore Results link. Selecting this link opens the list of titles in the section as a list of search results.
Person Entity Page
Below the general information about the person provided in the person Entity Page, the page includes the following sections. These sections contain links to bibliographic records that are connected to LCNAMES authority headings:
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Titles in the Library Written By [Person] – Returns all bibliographic records where the person appears as a creator or contributor. This section is limited to a maximum of 25 records and is sorted by date.
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Titles in the Library Written About [Person] – Returns all bibliographic records where the person appears as a subject. This section is limited to a maximum of 25 records and is sorted by date.
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People Associated with [Person] – From the titles that appear in the preceding two sections, all persons who appear as creators, contributors, or subjects are returned. The list is sorted based on the number of titles found that are associated with each person. This section is limited to a maximum of 40 persons.
Organization Entity Page
Below the general information, about the organization provided in the organization Entity Page, the page includes the following sections. These sections contain links to bibliographic records that are identified as related based on CDI data:
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Titles in the Library By [Organization] – Returns all the bibliographic records where the organization appears as a creator or contributor. This section is limited to a maximum of 25 records and is sorted by date.
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Titles in the Library Written About [Organization] – Returns all the bibliographic records where the organization appears as a subject. This section is limited to a maximum of 25 records and is sorted by date.
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People Associated with [Organization] – From the titles that appear in the preceding two sections, all persons who appear as creators, contributors, or subjects are returned. The list is sorted based on the number of titles found that are associated with each person. This section is limited to a maximum of 40 persons.
If the source from which the general information about the organization includes map coordinates for the location, a map appears beside the general information in the organization Entity Page.
Location Entity Page
Alongside the general information provided about a location in the location Entity Page, a map showing the location appears.
Below the general information, the page includes the following sections. These sections contain links to bibliographic records that are identified as related based on CDI data:
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Titles in the Library Written About [Location] – Returns all bibliographic records where the location appears as a subject. This section is limited to a maximum of 25 records and is sorted by date.
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People Associated with [Location] – From the titles that appear in the preceding section, all persons who appear as creators, contributors, or subjects are returned. The list is sorted based on the number of titles found that are associated with each person. This section is limited to a maximum of 40 persons.
Ranking Logic
Autocomplete and Info Cards for entities utilizes Elastic's function_score query functionality, which calculates a score based on the field values returned from records in the initial query's results. More specifically, several fields are indexed and leveraged during query time. The following fields are currently leveraged to generate values for these fields:
| Existing Field | Indexed Field | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| occupations | occupations_cnt | number (total count * 0.7) |
Emphasis is put on the occupations and field of work fields. |
|
field_of_work |
field_of_work_cnt | ||
|
variants
|
variants_cnt
|
number (total count * 0.2)
|
Counts for 'variants' have been discounted slightly since a large number of variants can negatively affect ranking. For example, Robyn William has many variants, but it appeared for names such as Waters Charles.
|
|
short_description |
has_description | boolean (value of 3.5 if true) | |
|
image_info.link_to_image |
has_image_info | boolean (value of 3 if true) | |
|
link_to_wikidata |
has_link_to_wikidata | boolean (value of 2.5 if true) | |
|
link_to_wikipedia |
has_link_to_wikipedia | boolean (value of 2 if true) |
For example, a query for queen elizabeth returns several persons, including Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Elizabeth II has more variants and less occupations than Prince Philip, but the original query has a higher score due to variants being included in the original scoring, which results in its final score being higher. In addition, the existence of both a description and an image gives more weight to a result that has only links to Wikidata or Wikipedia.
Configuration Options
This functionality is disabled by default and is configured at the institution level. Refer to the following table to enable this functionality and to configure related options.
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
|
Discovery Customer Settings page (Configuration > Discovery > Other > Customer Settings) |
The following parameters enable related-entity discovery for all views:
If you want to enable this functionality differently per view, set the above parameters to false and set their respective parameters to true on the View Configuration page. For additional information, see Discovery Customer Settings. |
|
View Configuration page (Configuration > Discovery > Display Configuration > Configure Views) |
The following parameters enable related-entity discovery per view:
For additional information, see Configuring Discovery Views for Primo VE. |
|
Person Entity Labels code table (Configuration > Discovery > Display Configuration > Labels) |
The following label codes are used in the related-entity display (Entity Info Cards and Entity pages):
|
|
Aria Labels code table (Configuration > Discovery > Display Configuration > Labels) |
The following codes support accessibility for the Entity Page:
The following codes support accessibility for the Info Card:
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Mixpanel - Entity Pages Events
User interactions with this functionality can be tracked as Entity Pages events. For example, you can use it to learn about which autocomplete suggestions for entities were selected by users, or under what circumstances users expanded or collapsed the Info Card section of the Recommendations panel. For information about the supported properties of Entity Pages events, see Mixpanel Events and Properties for the NDE UI.