LOD Platform

Interoperability | Unified Discovery | Data Enrichment

The LOD Platform, the flagship solution developed by @CULT, integrates libraries, archives and museums into a Linked Open Data ecosystem.

The platform centralises, connects and enriches information from heterogeneous systems, improves metadata quality, and makes resources more accessible, discoverable and visible across the Semantic Web.

Records | Entities | Relationships

In traditional models, data is managed as isolated records, often duplicated and difficult to correlate across different systems.

The LOD Platform introduces an entity-centric approach that transforms this information into unique entities and explicit relationships, building a coherent knowledge network.

The result is a shift from descriptive repositories to connected, navigable and reusable information ecosystems.

Integrate | Discover | Share

The LOD Platform is more than a technological infrastructure.

The platform promotes interoperability, integration and connectivity across diverse sources, creating meaningful relationships between data and generating new layers of knowledge to support digital transformation, collaboration and the development of innovative services.

Built on the BIBFRAME 2.0 ontology and interoperable with RDF, Schema.org, RDA, Wikidata and other international vocabularies, it automates the entire data lifecycle: from record ingestion and entity reconciliation to the publication of RDF datasets and semantic discovery environments.

Thanks to a scalable, future-proof architecture compliant with international standards, it supports distributed and next-generation cultural ecosystems, providing a robust solution designed to evolve with future requirements.

Key features:

• entity identification and clustering;
• entity resolution and semantic deduplication;
• automatic enrichment through authoritative international sources;
• Linked Open Data publication;
• collaborative entity management;
• advanced discovery and entity-centric navigation;
• interoperability with ILS/LSP systems and RDF infrastructures.

Data Ingestion and Transformation | Reconciliation and Enrichment | Publishing

The LOD Platform manages the entire Linked Open Data lifecycle.

It ingests data from local systems and external repositories in formats such as MARC, EAD, Dublin Core, MODS, METS and VRA Core.

A flexible mapping framework normalises structures and metadata, enables semantic transformation, and supports the adoption of new standards and descriptive models.

The clustering and reconciliation engine automatically identifies, correlates and aggregates entities originating from different sources, creating a unified and coherent representation of knowledge.

It detects matches, generates semantic clusters and assigns persistent URIs to people, organisations, works, places, subjects and concepts through advanced text analysis and fuzzy matching techniques, including statistical similarity, edit distance, phonetic matching and word embeddings.

Through automated semantic enrichment and RDF publishing processes, the platform enhances distributed information assets and promotes their discovery, reuse and interoperability.

The LOD Platform combines specialised modules that can be used either as part of an integrated ecosystem or adopted individually.

This enables organisations to create the solution best suited to their objectives, according to project requirements, optimisation priorities and existing infrastructures.

Authify is the component developed for entity enrichment, reconciliation and semantic linking.

By integrating authoritative international datasets such as VIAF, ISNI, LCNAF, FAST and Wikidata through RESTful services, advanced indexing and multi-layered search strategies, it enhances data quality, completeness and reliability, generating context-rich and semantically connected entities.

Key features:

• improves data accuracy and quality;
• automatically enriches entities;
• creates semantic connections across different datasets;
• increases interoperability and information reuse.

RDFizer automates data transformation into RDF according to the BIBFRAME 2.0 model and the semantic extensions developed within the Share Family ecosystem, including the Share-VDE Ontology.

The component supports publication on enterprise-ready triplestore infrastructures, ensuring scalability, interoperability and data access through SPARQL endpoints and REST or GraphQL APIs.

Key features:

• Linked Open Data publication;
• interoperability with distributed RDF ecosystems;
• scalability and management of large data volumes.

The Cluster Knowledge Base represents the platform’s central semantic repository, where entities generated through clustering, reconciliation and enrichment processes are aggregated, organised and maintained.

Available both in PostgreSQL relational environments and in RDF format, the CKB serves as the authoritative source of the Share Family ecosystem.

Key features:

• transparency and traceability;
• URI persistence;
• entity versioning;
• interoperability across different systems;
• continuous updating through automated processes and manual curation.

JCricket Entity Editor is a tool developed for advanced semantic entity management.

Within a collaborative environment, it enables librarians and data curators to create, edit, validate, merge and split entities, improving the quality and consistency of data generated through automated processes.

Every intervention is managed through the Entity Registry, which ensures persistence, versioning and URI redirect management, guaranteeing continuity and reliability in resource identification.

Key features:

• create new Linked Data entities;
• edit attributes and relationships;
• validate and review changes;
• merge or split semantic clusters;
• manage deduplication processes;
• track provenance and change history;
• advanced roles and permissions management;
• real-time notifications;
• operational dashboards;
• review and approval workflows;
• synchronisation across RDF stores, search engines and relational databases.

The LOD Platform powers semantic discovery portals and services where the primary access point is no longer the individual bibliographic record, but the entity and the network of relationships connecting it to other resources.

The infrastructure integrates SOLR indexing engines, SPARQL endpoints, REST and GraphQL APIs, OAI-PMH, Atom Feed and Activity Stream protocols, together with integration mechanisms for OPACs and local systems.

Key features:

• direct and indirect links;
• semantic relationships between works, agents, subjects and publications;
• hierarchical and conceptual pathways;
• connections with external datasets and Linked Open Data;
• integration with OPACs, local systems and services;
• multi-tenant portals;
• configurable filters and search modes;
• multilingual support;
• federated and interoperable discovery.

Knowledge | Collaboration | Growth

The LOD Platform:

• supports libraries, archives, museums, universities, consortia and cultural infrastructures in managing and enhancing their information assets;
• is suitable both for organisations seeking to modernise their descriptive systems and for collaborative networks aiming to build shared environments for the management, enrichment and dissemination of knowledge;
• improves data quality, reduces manual effort and duplication, fosters collaboration among institutions, and increases resource visibility within national and international ecosystems.

The LOD Platform underpins major national initiatives, including Share Catalogue, the network of university libraries in Southern Italy; PARSIFAL, the LOD portal of the URBE Consortium – Unione Romana delle Biblioteche Ecclesiastiche; LILLIT, dedicated to illustrated books from the period 1501–1800; and BDIB – Bibliographic Database of Interactive Books, developed in collaboration with Sapienza University of Rome, the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue and the Central Institute for Graphic Arts.

These initiatives subsequently converged into the global SHARE Family project, a unique library-led initiative dedicated to the development of Linked Open Data processes and environments, of which the platform constitutes the technological core.

A complex and distributed collaborative ecosystem:

• over 150 million managed entities;
• more than 40 participating institutions of national and international significance.

For a complete overview of projects and participating organisations, please consult the dedicated SHARE Family ecosystem page.

Technology | Workflows | Automation

For further details about the technology stack, please refer to the dedicated section

Scalability | Flexibility | Evolution

Contact us to explore the available solutions.

We will be pleased to help you identify the combination of services and modules best suited to your objectives.