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The main goal of TextileBase is to help dress history scholars and practitioners by creating a gateway to linked data that have been collected and stored by researchers and memory institutions. In that way it is a platform to collect, connect, and share meta- and research data on material, visual, and textual sources of historical clothing. We explain TextileBase as a linked, open, graph database in a different report. In this review we show how we placed a valuable, stand-alone dataset into this interoperable database.

First Data Publications

Entry examples from Linked Open Datasets on Garments from the Latgale Region, from right to left: Q142, Q180, Q179, Q181.

The first published dataset, Linked Open Datasets on Garments from the Latgale Region contains data on Latvian traditional shirts and skirts from the Latgale region in Eastern Latvia. The The female and male shirts, and the skirts in the dataset are handmade and were worn in the 19th century. They represent both festive and daily wear of the local female and male peasants. The shirts are stored at the National History Museum of Latvia and the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia. The data contain information on the locality of their origin, their approximate date of creation with various precisions, the materials they are made of, and the way of their fabrication, as well as their purpose of wearing (festive or daily wear) and wearer’s ethnicity and gender. They also include the name of the museum each shirt is stored at, supplemented with its unique inventory number. Data on some sample shirts also include a photo of the shirt.

• See example entries: Q142, Q180, Q179, Q181.
• Check out the properties (relations) in the data model: ListProperties
• See every entry in the database: All items

Secondary sources

TextileBase contains references and previews of secondary sources, such as drawings, color plates or photographs of garments.

TextileBase contains references and previews of secondary sources, such as drawings, color plates or photographs of garments.

See for example:

• Khanty (Ostiak) ermine hunters in traditional winter clothing (color plate) (Q308) and Peasant Women in Traditional Dress from Ingria (color plate) (Q319), both taken from Illustration and Description of the Peoples and Tribes under the Benevolent Rule of the Russian Emperor Alexander (Q312)
• Estonian Peasant Dance (drawing) (Q322) and Estonian Peasant Dance (drawing reproduction) (Q321)
• Group Portrait of Johann George Schwartz, his Wife, and an Unknown Woman (drawing) (Q329) and its photographic reproduction (Q328)

Getting started

• TextileBase on Zenodo
• MediaWiki FAQ