More and more cultural institutions use Linked Data principles to share and connect their collection metadata. In the archival field, initiatives emerge to exploit data contained in archival descriptions and adapt encoding standards to the semantic web. In this context, online authority files can be used to enrich metadata. However, relying on a decentralized network of knowledge bases such as Wikidata, DBpedia or even Viaf has its own difficulties. This paper aims to offer a critical view of these linked authority files by adopting a close-reading approach. Through a practical case study, we intend to identify and illustrate the possibilities and limits of RDF triples compared to institutions' less structured metadata.

Workshop "Dariah "Trust and Understanding: the value of metadata in a digitally joined-up world" (14/05/2018, Brussels), preprint of the submission to the journal "Archives et Biblioth\`eques de Belgique"