Eric,
You probably want to do the 1.0.7 full install, which does use a MySQL database.  Sound like you've installed just the demo version.

Kari Smith



-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 10:42 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] ArchivesSpace v1.0.7 Released [linked data]

On Mar 6, 2014, at 9:47 AM, Mark A. Matienzo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ArchivesSpace has a REST backend API, and requests yield a response in 
> JSON. As one option, I'd investigate to publish linked data as JSON-LD.
> Some degree of mapping would be necessary, but I imagine it would be 
> significantly easier to that instead of using something like D2RQ.


If I understand things correctly, using D2RQ to publish database contents as linked data is mostly a systems administration task:

  1. download and install D2RQ
  2. run D2RQ-specific script to read a (ArchiveSpace) database schema and create a configuration file
  3. run D2RQ with the configuration file
  4. provide access via standard linked data publishing methods
  5. done

If the field names in the initial database are meaningful, and if the database schema is normalized, then D2RQ ought to work pretty well. If many archives use ArchiveSpace, then the field names can become "standard" or at least "best practices", and the resulting RDF will be well linked. 

I have downloaded and run ArchiveSpace on my desktop computer. It imported some of my EAD files pretty well. It created EAC-CPF files from my names. Fun. I didn't see a way to export things as EAD. The whole interface is beautiful and functional. In my copious spare time I will see about configuring ArchiveSpace to use a MySQL backend (instead of the embedded database), and see about putting D2RQ on top. I think this will be easier than learning a new API and building an entire linked data publishing system. D2RQ may be an viable option with the understanding that no solution is perfect.

-
Eric Morgan