Tutorial by Navino Evans (Histropedia) recorded at Repository Fringe 2017.
Wikidata
is a free linked database of secondary data (facts and statements) that can be
read and edited by both humans and machines. Wikidata
acts as central storage for the structured data of its Wikimedia sister
projects including Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource,
and others.
SPARQL
is a programming language for querying ‘linked data’ stored on the web. It’s
essentially a set of commands that allow you to find exactly the data you want. Learning
SPARQL will allow you to query Wikidata,
but also the countless other data sources offering a SPARQL query service
E.g. Show me a list of all Female
Chemists, along with their date of birth, place of birth, and the map
coordinates of their place of birth.
How hard would it be to do that
using Google!?!