Machine-Generated Colon Class Numbers: Automatic Classification of Indian Literary Works in the Wikidata Environment

Abstract

Wikidata is emerging rapidly as an omnipresent information space. The main objective of Wikidata is to create a structure to represent all human knowledge in many different languages. It is a free, Linked Open Dataset (LOD) that can interact with humans and machines and act as a bridge between them. Wikidata serves as a central repository for structured data of all other Wiki-based applications (like Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Wikinews), integrating them into a coherent unit. It is a multilingual, collaboratively editable central repository of structured and linked open data. Interestingly, Wikidata is based on a facet-based linked open data approach like, the theory of facet analysis proposed by Ranganathan. The literary works available in Wikidata are linked with the author of the work, the language of the work, and other important attributes like genre, publication year, and so on. The author of the work has properties like, date of birth, occupation, native language, writing language, and so on. These faceted linked data elements of literary works can be joined together based on the rule base of the Colon Classification (6th edition). The synthesis of the Colon class number is therefore amenable to automation in the Wikidata environment by using a set of suitable JavaScripts (these JavaScripts are called gadgets in the Wikidata environment). One such gadget is CCLitBox, developed by Stefano Bargioni (a librarian) and Carlo Bianchini (a teacher in LIS). This research study explores the applications of CCLitBox in generating CC 6th edition-based class numbers for Indian literary works.