









































Listen and Learn sessions  215

Linking the Art in the Christian 
Tradition Database to Wikidata
Charlotte Y. Lew, Digital Scholarship and Special Projects Coordinator, 
Vanderbilt Heard Libraries 
Steven J. Baskauf, Data Science and Data Curation Specialist, Vanderbilt 
Heard Libraries

ABSTRACT The Art in the Christian Tradition image collection and database 
was developed to support the Vanderbilt Divinity School’s Revised Common 
Lectionary website, but it has become an important source of images in its 
own right. To improve discoverability, we started a project to create Wikidata 
items for all works in the collection, with the goal of linking those items to 
as many images in Wikimedia Commons as possible. We describe several 
challenges we faced in the early stages of the project. We provide an intro-
duction to creating an item and refer to some useful tools for learning how 
to edit Wikidata and to perform bulk uploads. We end by describing how 
features of Wikidata can make artworks more discoverable and how we 
hope to improve the quality of our image metadata in the future.

IMAGE 1 “Black Jesus.” An ACT image and its associated RCL scripture. Image by 
klndonnelly CC BY from https://www.flickr.com/photos/genvessel/537739978/ via 
https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59089 LinkingArtChristian_
Image1.png

https://www.flickr.com/photos/genvessel/537739978/
https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59089 LinkingArtChristian_Image1.png
https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59089 LinkingArtChristian_Image1.png


216  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

THE INTERWOVEN DESIGN OF ACT AND RCL

The scripture above was taken from the Vanderbilt Revised Common 
Lectionary website, abbreviated as RCL. The artwork matched with 
the scripture was retrieved from the Art in the Christian Tradition 
database, abbreviated as ACT. It manifests how the matched ACT art 
image works with the biblical scripture in the RCL.

The RCL website was established by Anne Richardson, the Special 
Projects Librarian of Vanderbilt Divinity Library, in 1995. She envi-
sioned embedding religious art in weekly biblical readings when the 
project was first launched. The combination of RCL and ACT offers many 
tools for worldwide ministry and personal reflection. RCL and ACT pride 
themselves on celebrating diversity in ethnicity, practice, and social lo-
cation through these interwoven aspects of Christian spirituality. RCL 
with ACT collection is the second-most visited website at Vanderbilt 
University. Moreover, it served more than a million global users in 2021.

ACT was developed for congregational and educational use, to en-
able leaders of worship and teachers to easily find visual art resources 
related to the scripture readings for each Sunday in the church calen-
dar. ACT offers more than seven thousand images taken from street 
art, mosaics, frescoes, manuscripts, sculptures, architecture, and paint-
ings. To optimize the search results, the image data are structured to 
be searchable by keyword, scripture reference, iconographic content, 
personal name, time period, and geographical location. Most of the 
images are freely available for use with an attribution requirement. 

WHY LINK THE ACT DATABASE WITH WIKIDATA?

What is Wikidata? Why did we use this interface to feature the 
ACT image database? Based on the Wikidata homepage (https://
www.wikidata.org/), “Wikidata is a free, collaborative, multilingual, 
secondary database, collecting structured data to provide support 
for Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, … and to anyone in the world.” 
In other words, Wikidata is a central hub of linked data for all the 
Wikimedia projects. It is a multilingual platform for presenting and 
sharing information globally. Its impacts on research, metadata 
production, and collection visibility are immense. As is well known, 
open-access repositories in STEM disciplines are much more robust 
than those in the humanities. Therefore, increasing access to 
religion and theology collections on Wikidata is vital to researchers, 
instructors, students, and professionals in the theological schools.

https://www.wikidata.org/
https://www.wikidata.org/


Listen and Learn sessions  217

PROGRESS REPORT

Linking the ACT image database with Wikidata is one of several 
Vanderbilt Wikidata projects. Before the ACT/Wikidata project 
was initiated, Steve Baskauf had contributed to transposing data 
of 6,800 images from the Vanderbilt Art Gallery to Wikidata. In 
the spring of 2021, Anne, Steve, and I (Charlotte Lew) started 
the project that aspired to elevate the reputation and increase 
the accessibility of the ACT database. The project site is here: 
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_
the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT). We began by setting the project’s 
goal and generating four phases of an implementation plan. We 
use GitHub to record our progress and to create tickets for the 
encountered issues. Seeing a list of problems crossed out when 
solutions are delivered is fulfilling.

In phase one, we focused on images that exist in Wikimedia Com-
mons and Wikidata, but that also have records in the ACT. Python 
scripts were utilized to retrieve around 3,300 images that fell into 
this category. We petitioned the Wikidata Foundation for a new ID 
for the ACT image collection and were assigned P9092. The newly 
appointed ID was used to link the existing Wikidata items to their 
corresponding records in the ACT database.

In phase two, we aimed to create new Wikidata items for the 
images existing in the ACT and Commons, which don’t have Wiki-
data items yet. Despite some unsolved issues, we decided to value 
progress over perfection. As a result, phase two was completed in 
May 2022. Combining phases one and two, more than 5,000 ACT 
image records have been automatically imported to Wikidata. This 
couldn’t have been done without Steve’s programming talents. How-
ever, manually cleaning up and enhancing the data in advance is 
critical to making mass transposition possible. The tasks that re-
quire human intervention before automation materializes are il-
lustrated below.

TASKS DEMANDING HUMAN INTERVENTION

Preventing Duplication
Inevitably, multiple images of the same work exist in Wikimedia 
Commons, and multiple records describing the same image exist 
in Wikidata. How to discover and disentangle the duplication can 

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)


218  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

be a challenge. We discretely analyzed the complicated duplication 
and learned that multiple Wikidata items had the same label, but 
their item types differed. For example, “The Good Samaritan” can 
be an artwork painted by Rembrandt or a biblical parable. We also 
noticed that some Commons images came with various versions, 
such as black and white or cropped. Correctly adding the ACT ID to 
a Wikidata item cannot be done without taking great discernment 
among duplicates.

Reconciling Inconsistent Data
After Python scripts scraped data from ACT and Commons, we faced 
the challenge of inconsistencies in the data, such as the inception 
date or creator. The creation date of an artwork fluctuates depend-
ing on the source of the data. The precise date is preferable, but a 
broader range of years can be acceptable. It is common for an im-
age uploader or photographer to mistakenly use their name as an 
artist’s name, especially when they don’t know who created the art. 
Numerous artworks in the ACT database were created by unknown 
artists. Although several world-renowned museums and galleries 
provide reliable resources for verifying these inquiries, it takes time 
to excavate the accurate information.

WIKIDATA PROPERTY VALUE ACT PROPERTY COMMONS PROPERTY

INSTANCE OF P31 object/function object type

IMAGE P18 image image

TITLE P1476 title title

CREATOR P170 artist artist

INCEPTION P571 date date

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN P495 country of origin country of origin

COUNTRY P17 country country

LOCATION P276 current location, city/town current location

COLLECTION P357 collection collection

GENRE P242 genre genre

MAIN SUBJECT P84 subject subject

MADE FROM MATERIAL P306 material medium

HEIGHT P2048 height dimensions

WIDTH P2049 width dimensions

TABLE 1 Properties used with ACT artworks in Wikidata



Listen and Learn sessions  219

Determining Appropriate Properties
Identifying key properties to associate with item types is essential. 
The data models of ACT and Commons are different. We agreed to 
prioritize the ACT properties which better fit our needs. The table 
above indicates the list of potential properties to feature when cre-
ating a new Wikidata item. We know pairing scriptures with the art-
work fulfills the goal of ACT design. Therefore, we are determined 
to find the suitable properties to include scriptures. After exploring 
several options, we discovered the properties of “based on” and “sec-
tion, verse, paragraph, or clause” for the scriptures.

CREATING A NEW WIKIDATA ITEM

Wikidata, a well-structured database, offers an intuitive workflow 
for the users to create or modify data. The workflow is arranged in a 
linear movement, from labeling items with descriptions to building 
statements and then providing identifiers. Each addition shows a 
drop-down of options for users to pick as the following property to fill.

IMAGE 2 Example from an ACT webpage. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-
imagelink.pl?RC=56964 – LinkingArtChristian_Image2.png

https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56964 – LinkingArtChristian_Image2.png
https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56964 – LinkingArtChristian_Image2.png


220  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

IMAGE 3 Example from a Wikimedia Commons page. Image by Dirtsc CC BY-SA 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spgb_tympanon.jpg 

The image used for demonstration is a mosaic titled “Christ walks 
on water and rescues Peter.” Comparing the data displayed in the 
ACT and Commons, we find the title, item type, date, location, and 
scriptures from the ACT. But the artist’s information is missing. The 
data included in Commons are relatively less helpful. “April 13, 2012” 
is inappropriate information because the date should be when the 
art piece was created rather than when the image was uploaded. 
The listed author, “Dirtsc,” is not the artist’s name but the username 
of the image uploader. After comparison, it is more effective and 
accurate to create a new item mainly based on the data we retrieve 
from the ACT database.

PROCEDURE FOR CREATING A NEW WIKIDATA ITEM FOR THE ACT IMAGE

See Wikidata item of “Christ Walks on Water and Rescues Peter” 
(https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111842119) for details.

• Log into Wikidata if an account is already set up. Without a 
personal account, the editing won’t be attributed to the edi-
tor.

• To avoid duplication, enter the artwork’s title in the search 
box. The indication of “no match was found” provides the 
green light to create a new item.

• Click on “create a new item” under the Wikidata icon.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spgb_tympanon.jpg
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111842119


Listen and Learn sessions  221

• “en” in the language field means the title is in English. Copy 
the title from the ACT database and paste it into the label 
field. Add item type and artist’s name in the description 
field. Because the artist’s name is unavailable, “mosaic by 
the artist unknown” was keyed in.

• After the item is created, move on to build statements. The 
first required property, “instance of,” is to specify the item 
type. The artwork is a mosaic. For the image property, insert 
the Commons image URL. This action makes the item link-
able to the Commons. Make sure to assign a language to go 
with the title accordingly. If the information is available, add 
other statements, such as inception and location. The “based 
on” property and “section, verse, paragraph, or clause,” 
qualifiers are employed to indicate books and verses for bib-
lical scripture. “Creator” is an important property to include, 
but the needed information is missing. The creator can be 
added when the data is uncovered. To provide references to 
all the statements, the ACT image page URL is inserted as the 
reference URL and specifies the retrieved date afterward.

• After adding statements, the Art in the Christian Tradition 
ID P9092 is used as an identifier. After the record number is 
entered, click the record number can link up the item with 
the ACT database.

When a statement is added, the “item not found” warning ap-
pears when the entry for a property or value is not an existing item 
in Wikidata. To ensure data are linkable, a new item must be creat-
ed. However, don’t sweat over the incompletion of item statements. 
Including the basic properties can be an easy start for beginners. 
Don’t forget that Wikidata values the effort of global collaboration 
to enrich its dataset. Items that seem presently incomplete can be 
enhanced by other editors later.

TRAINING AND COLLABORATION

A good tiding to share with whoever is interested in showcasing one’s 
institutional publications or special collections on Wikidata: To lower 
the barriers so more people can join the Wikidata editing force, the 
Vanderbilt Wikidata project team created a training tutorial called 
Learn Wikidata (https://www.learnwikidata.net/). This peer-led course 
provides training that ranges from the basic skills of creating a user 
account and editing items to more advanced techniques such as add-

https://www.learnwikidata.net/
https://www.learnwikidata.net/


222  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

ing gadgets to make editing more efficient. The tutorial comprises 20 
learning topics individually featured in brief animation videos. The 
program is available in English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. It 
also comes with closed captions to facilitate learning. To address the 
needs of librarians with various levels of experience with Wikimedia 
projects, Learn Wikidata offers a self-paced environment for users 
to customize their own learning pathways.

Wikidata provides a free platform for seminary libraries to pub-
licize their institutional scholarship without having to invest in 
building an expensive and complicated scholarly communications 
infrastructure. To develop a community of practice around Wikidata, 
more theological librarians should be encouraged and empowered 
to participate in these critically important projects. The Wikidata 
religion and theology community needs more partnerships to foster 
global scholarly communications.

SPEEDING UP THE EDITING PROCESS WITH TOOLS

Although the Wikidata web interface is very easy to use, it is slow and 
somewhat tedious if you have a lot of data that you want to upload. 
Fortunately, there are several freely available tools that you can use 
to speed up the process. Two of them are well known: QuickState-
ments and OpenRefine. A less well-known tool, VanderBot, is a Py-
thon script that Steve wrote to upload CSV data to Wikidata.

QuickStatements  (https : / /www.wikidata .org /wik i /
Help:QuickStatements) is often used together with other tools that can 
output data into its format. For example, the commonly used reference 
manager Zotero can export data about publications in QuickStatements 
format so that it can then be uploaded en masse to Wikidata.

OpenRefine (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tools/
OpenRefine) is a more powerful tool for bulk upload. There is a 
greater learning curve to using it than QuickStatements, but for 
existing OpenRefine users it is a good option, since Wikidata support 
is built in. It is necessary to set up a schema in order for OpenRefine 
to map your data in such a way that the Wikidata API (application 
programming interface) can understand it. However, once set up, 
OpenRefine will help you reconcile your data against Wikidata items 
that already exist, preventing duplication. Christa Strickler described 
how she used OpenRefine in a project to add theological publications 
to Wikidata (Strickler 2021, 311-12).

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:QuickStatements
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:QuickStatements
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tools/OpenRefine
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tools/OpenRefine


Listen and Learn sessions  223

For the ACT project, we chose to use the VanderBot script (https://
github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/blob/master/vanderbot/
README.md) to perform the data upload. It is somewhat less user-
friendly than the other tools because it requires installing Python and 
running the script from the command line. However, since its data 
source is a simple CSV spreadsheet, once it is set up it is relatively 
easy to enter the data by hand, or to generate the CSV using another 
script. It also records detailed information identifying each statement 
and reference that is created, making it possible to change or delete 
the statement at a future time (Baskauf and Baskauf 2021). In our 
case, we used a series of Python scripts to combine data from the ACT 
database and Wikimedia Commons, clean and disambiguate, and 
generate appropriate references. The output of this series of scripts 
could then be fed directly into VanderBot to do the upload. Because 
the data were in the form of a spreadsheet prior to uploading, we 
could use a regular spreadsheet editor to proofread and to simply 
copy and paste values if we wanted to make any final changes.

As we mentioned previously, one challenge is to avoid creating 
duplicates of items that already exist in Wikidata. One of the Python 
scripts we used during processing searched for possible duplicates 
of a work by using the Wikidata Query Service to download the 
labels of all works made by the artist of that work, and then perform 
fuzzy string matching to identify any potential existing works that 
might be a duplicate. The final decision was made by a human who 
reviewed the matches to decide if the work should be excluded from 
the upload. Code used in the project is available in GitHub at https://
github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/tree/master/act.

For most users, OpenRefine seems to have the best balance of 
adaptability with moderate difficulty. However, if you are comfort-
able working with code, Python scripts provide a powerful and flex-
ible way to increase the efficiency of preparing and uploading data. 
We were able to create over 1,250 new artwork items for ACT works 
using this workflow.

FEATURES OF WIKDATA THAT IMPROVE DISCOVERABILITY

A major motivation behind creating Wikidata items for ACT artworks 
was to improve their discoverability. There are three features that 
improve discoverability that are built in to Wikdiata: aliases, multi-
lingual capabilities, and querying.

https://github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/blob/master/vanderbot/README.md
https://github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/blob/master/vanderbot/README.md
https://github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/blob/master/vanderbot/README.md
https://github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/tree/master/act
https://github.com/HeardLibrary/linked-data/tree/master/act


224  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

IMAGE 4 Searching Wikidata using an alias. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/
Q7589569.

When an item is created in Wikidata, it can be given a label and a 
description. However, it is also possible to list other possible labels 
that people may use for that item. These alternative labels are called 
“aliases.” For example, the St. Louis Bible (https://www.wikidata.org/
wiki/Q7589569) has also been given the aliases “Rich Bible of Toledo” 
and “Toledo Bible”. Entering any of these terms in the search box 
allows the item to be found.

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7589569
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7589569
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7589569
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7589569


Listen and Learn sessions  225

IMAGE 5 Multilingual labels for a Wikidata artwork item. https://www.wikidata.org/
wiki/Q1635039.

One of the key features of Wikidata is that it was designed to 
have multilingual capabilities right out of the box—multilingual 
labels are a core part of the model that underlies Wikidata. In the 
example above, the painting “Tobias and the Angel” (https://www.
wikidata.org/wiki/Q1635039) is relatively famous and therefore has 
been labeled and described in many languages. The ability to create 
labels, descriptions, and aliases in many languages allows users 
around the world to find the works and to learn about them in their 
own languages.

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1635039
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1635039
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1635039
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1635039


226  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

IMAGE 6 Art in the Christian Tradition Paintings before 1600 webpage. Example of a 
page built from a SPARQL query using the tool Listeria. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/
Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600.

The most powerful tool that is built into Wikidata is the ability 
to query its data. Because Wikidata is at its core structured and 
machine-readable, it is very well suited for querying. Some web 
pages, such as this list of ACT pre-1600 paintings (https://www.
wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_
Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600) are actually generated based 
on a query of data in Wikidata. This type of page is generated by a 
tool called Listeria (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Listeria) 
and it is periodically updated automatically by a bot.

The underlying technology is a query language called SPARQL 
(https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/) that you can use to discover 
information in Wikidata. The Wikidata Query Service interface 
(https://query.wikidata.org/) can be used to construct and test queries. 
It also comes with several built-in visualizations that are useful with 
artworks, such as an image gallery and a timeline. These “canned” 
visualizations can be embedded in web pages, where they are 
updated live each time the page is loaded.

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Art_in_the_Christian_Tradition_(ACT)/Paintings_before_1600
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Listeria
https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/
https://query.wikidata.org/


Listen and Learn sessions  227

IMAGE 7 Timeline of mosaics in the Art in the Christian Tradition database. Example 
of a visualization built using a SPARQL query. Link to conduct the query: https://w.
wiki/5EHm.

It is possible to perform the SPARQL queries “under the hood” 
as part of custom Javascript code, then to use the retrieved data to 
build custom web pages that display the data. A good example of this 
is the University of Edinburgh’s website that seeks to humanize the 
victims of witchcraft trials (https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/). In addition 
to using queries to generate visualizations, some visualizations in 
that website provide links to the Wikidata pages about the accused, 
allowing for more detailed exploration of their lives.

FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS AND VALUE ADDED

We have additional metadata available from the ACT database that 
we have not yet added to the Wikidata items for the artworks. This 
includes the material medium of the artwork, scriptural references 
associated with the artwork, the subject, and the icon class. Adding 
values for these metadata properties can improve search capabili-
ties and make it possible to create custom search pages that use these 
values to direct users to appropriate artworks through SPARQL que-
ries incorporated in the page Javascript.

Since Wikidata is an open knowledge graph, we can build on the 
previous work of others, and others can improve the metadata about 

https://w.wiki/5EHm
https://w.wiki/5EHm
https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/


228  atLa 2022 ProCeedinGs

items we have created. This is potentially a big benefit if your project 
is being carried out by a small group with limited resources.

REFERENCES

Baskauf, Steven J. and Jessica K. Baskauf. 2021. “Using the 
W3C Generating RDF from Tabular Data on the Web 
Recommendation to Manage Small Wikidata Datasets.” 
Semantic Web Journal. https://doi.org/10.3233/SW-210443

Strickler, Christa. 2021. “Mind the Wikidata Gap: Why You Should 
Care About Theological Data Gaps in Wikipedia’s Obscure 
Relative, and How You Can Do Something About It.” Atla 
Summary of Proceedings: Seventy-fifth Annual Conference of 
Atla: 301-14. https://doi.org/10.31046/proceedings.2021.2978

https://doi.org/10.3233/SW-210443
https://doi.org/10.31046/proceedings.2021.2978

	_Hlk104548006

