Wikidata:Property proposal/Alexander Keiller Museum ID

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I am employed by the University of York, and working for a UKRI funded project to digitise part of the Alexander Keiller Museum collection, which is managed by the National Trust, but has an idiosyncratic accession numbering / person ID system which is not consistent with nationwide NT collections.

As part of this project, we will be:

- uploading images of archive materials to Commons, and I would like to be able to attach info to the Commons files using Wikidata.

- creating, and updating existing, information about individuals who took part in excavations at Avebury in the 1930s, some of whom already have Wikidata items.

I am proposing the property 'Alexander Keiller Museum ID' in order to link accession numbers and UIDs related to people represented in the collection to new materials uploaded to Wikicommons and elsewhere on Wikidata.

Thank you so much for any comments, advice, ideas on this! Very happy to explain more of the project.  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Medievalfran (talk • contribs) at 11:04, 22 October 2024 (UTC).[reply]

• Tubezlob VIGNERON Jane023 Pigsonthewing Ambrosiani Spinster Wittylama Fuzheado Daniel Mietchen Marsupium Martingggg Anne-LaureM Beat Estermann Manu1400 Mauricio V. Genta Patafisik MartinPoulter Tris T7 BeatrixBelibaste Clifflandis Mrtngrsbch Reciproque Weadock313 (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2019 (UTC) ProtoplasmaKid Crowjane7 Scarey1 (talk) 11:55, 9 February 2021 (UTC) Zblace Suna no onna Maxime Ravel Antoine2711 S.v.Mering[reply]
  Notified participants of WikiProject Museums. --Lewis Hulbert (talk) 10:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment Much too brief and there isn't even an item yet for the museum?! I wrote a longer comment on User talk:Medievalfran. Jane023 (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment Thank you for pinging the Museums project, Lewis Hulbert. I left notes on what I thought were related projects https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Museums#Property_proposal:_Alexander_Keiller_Museum_ID and https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Heritage_institutions. Medievalfran
•  CommentIn answer to comment above, the Alexander Keiller Museum does already have an item Q26647600. Do let me know of any further queries, only too happy to explain more of the collection/ project.Medievalfran (talk) 16:04, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment Following feedback on my Talk page, I have created a Project Page with further information about the motivation behind this property, and other activity I have planned for Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_AveburyPapers Medievalfran (talk) 15:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment Added further details and links in proposal template above. Medievalfran (talk) 15:36, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment To be clear, this property is different to National Trust Collections ID Property:P4373, because of the idosyncratic way in which the Alexander Keiller Museum collection has been created (drawing together items from the Alexander Keiller Museum at Charles Street in the 1930s, with material on long term loan from English Heritage and Historic England, and UIDs used for individuals which are not standardised to National Trust IDs. To put simply: the Alexander Keiller Museum makes use of National Trust IDs for SOME of its items, but not all of them. The NT collections website linked above has some items, but an additional 9000 objects, and the People IDs used by the Museum are not on this collections website but are in internal cms. Medievalfran (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment Glad to see that more information has been added to this proposal. I guess I'm still struggling to understand what these IDs can be used for. With an external ID, the usual thing is that it can be added to a URL stem to make a link which will give more information about the object, in a human- and/or machine-readable form. Normally, that URL stem is included in the property proposal, but as you've explained the relevant database is not online so it can't be linked to. So I'm not sure this is an "external ID" in the sense in which Wikidata uses the term. If these are just accession numbers, then why not use inventory number (P217) for the number (and described at URL (P973) for the web link, when one exists)? What is gained by having a dedicated property? For the people, would archives at (P485) work? MartinPoulter (talk) 13:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment I like MartinPoulter's suggestions. Is there a timeline for the database going online? i.e. more generally is it worth making the specific ID now as an investment for when it is live? As Medievalfran says they are limited on the time they have left on the project Lajmmoore (talk) 23:11, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
•  Comment Thank you MartinPoulter for suggestions - that would work really well for now, and the DOIs will be available for the data in autumn 2025, so we can be incremental with it. Thank you all!