Share-VDE is a library-driven initiative which brings together the bibliographic catalogues and authority files of a community of libraries in a shared discovery environment based on linked data. Share-VDE expanded its scope to embrace a wider community of over thirty institutions also from the art and music domains, building the Share Family.
The collaborative endeavour, based on the requirements and perceptions of libraries, is promoted by Casalini Libri, international bibliographic agency and member of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging; @CULT, provider of ILS, Discovery tools and Semantic Web solutions for the cultural heritage sector, with input and active participation from an international group of national and research libraries and influenced by the vision of the LD4P project.
After two successful research & development phases launched in 2016 and with the cooperation of the Library of Congress, Share-VDE and the Share Family are now going progressively into production connecting the catalogues of over 20 libraries in the US, Canada and Europe. The collaborative initiative is potentially open to any library and is steered by the library community.
The Share Family of initiatives based on linked data comprises Share-VDE (Virtual Discovery Environment), Share-CATALOGUE (the Italian network of university libraries applying the Share principles), Share-ART (currently represented by the Kubikat-LOD project including the Art History libraries of the Max Planck Institut), and Share-MUSIC (a pilot in the music domain). The different characteristics of each field are a useful asset that can be used to the advantage not only of the Share Family as a whole, but for each single discipline.
