Robert Sanderson
Senior Director for Digital Cultural Heritage
Yale University
In June 2023, Yale University launched LUX—a cross-collections, cross-domain discovery platform built using linked open usable data standards and principles. It seamlessly integrates full-text search and faceting with advanced graph-based queries, demonstrating the value of connecting and enriching data from across institutional boundaries. The reaction to LUX has been overwhelmingly positive and has led to unexpected opportunities, of which we will discuss three. First, units within Yale’s cultural heritage division have started to migrate their individual collection sites to be based on the LUX infrastructure, rather than maintain separate databases, due to its performance and functionality. This is an unexpected cost saving and value-add for the cultural heritage partners. Secondly, there is a desire to use the technology and processes in other domains at Yale, including for the discovery of research data, which is another value-add for the university as a whole. Finally, we have had immense interest from other national and international organizations to adopt our work, and are looking forward to working with the community to build not just a single application, but to be part of a global knowledge network.
