DOI: 10.34908/vkmq-hk45
title: Tools of Knowledge Database

description: Description: This repository contains data associated with the Tools of Knowledge project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The project is a collaboration between National Museums Scotland, the University of Cambridge, the University of Sussex, and Royal Museums Greenwich, and focuses on the scientific instrument trade in Britain and Ireland from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century. The data here is derived from SIMON (Scientific Instrument Makers, Observations and Notes), a database collated by Dr Gloria Clifton at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, drawing on and adding to data created by Project SIMON (see Clifton, 1991, [https://doi.org/10.1179/isr.1991.16.1.16]. The data was cleaned and remodelled by the Tools of Knowledge project to align with an extended version of the CIDOC-CRM cultural heritage ontology, called SIMEON. The SIMEON ontology [https://nms.iro.bl.uk/concern/datasets/2e8971bb-c46f-4725-b78d-e3468175a2f0] was developed by the project to better capture the specific types of entities and relationships present in the SIMON data, and to facilitate linking with other datasets. A number of transformations were made to the original SIMON data, including: - Remodelling the data to capture different entity types (e.g., people, places, instruments, organisations) - Cleaning and standardising the data (dates, names, places, etc.) - Modelling the relationships between entities (e.g., makers, organisations, locations) - Modelling events (apprenticeships, life events, inventions, etc.) - Creating controlled vocabularies for scientific instruments and related concepts NOTE: This represents the full scope of the SIMON dataset but is missing around 6-7% of the original entries (spread across all persons/dates) due to a data corruption issue which necessitated the removal of some entries to avoid the inclusion of erroneous data. A full dataset will be uploaded as soon as possible. The RDF data contained in this repository is intended to be used with a Graph Database (such as GraphDB) and can be queried using a SPARQL endpoint. A full description of the data and ontology will be provided in a forthcoming paper. In addition to this, a publicly-accessible version of the data stored in Arches, a web-based platform for managing and publishing Linked Open Data, is under development. Using This Data: The RDF data in this repository is provided in Turtle (TTL) format, and can be imported into a Graph Database such as GraphDB. We cannot provide exhaustive instructions for this, but GraphDB Free can be downloaded from [https://www.ontotext.com/products/graphdb/]. The workflow for importing the data is as follows: - Download and install GraphDB Free - Create a new repository in GraphDB - Import the ontology file `source_data/ontologies/SIMEOn_V21_20231215.owl` into the repository - Import the controlled vocabularies from `source_data/concepts/skos/` into the repository - Import the RDF files from the `rdf/` directory into the repository - Once imported, the data can be queried using SPARQL. - For more information on using GraphDB, see the documentation at [https://graphdb.ontotext.com/documentation/] Repository Contents: - `source_data/arches_csvs/`: Source SIMEON data in Arches CSV format - `source_data/ontologies/SIMEOn_V21_20231215.owl`: The SIMEON ontology in OWL format - `source_data/concepts/skos/`: Controlled vocabularies used in SIMEON/Arches in SKOS format - `source_data/concepts/all-simeon-concepts-v1-2025-08-13.csv`: All concepts used in SIMEON/Arches in CSV format (key, value) - `mappings`: CSV-RDF mapping files in JSON format, produced using OntoRefine - `rdf`: RDF outputs, TTL format. The files are split into entity types (People, Organisations, Places, Addresses etc.).
description: Author affililiation: Dr. Rebekah Higgitt, National Museums Scotland (PI) Dr. Duncan Hay, University of Sussex/University College London (Research Associate) Dr. Alex Butterworth, University of Sussex (Co-I) Dr. Sarah Middle, National Museums Scotland/University of York (Research Associate) Prof. Liba Taub, University of Cambridge (PI) Dr. Boris Jardine, University of Cambridge (Co-I) Dr. Josh Nall, University of Cambridge (Co-I) Mr. Matt Beros, University of Cambridge (Research Assistant)