NADD/Process
NADD Open Data
Read about NADD's data visualization, collection and sharing practices on the NADD website.
These pages also describe how to retrieve data at scale, via the Wikidata API and SPARQL endpoint.
The data collection process
We collected data from dozens of Dutch cultural institutions and other resources active in the fields of design and digital culture. For an overview of aggregated datasets, see the Datasets and partners subpage of this portal. This overview may be incomplete: the data continues to be curated and added to.
This project also maintains a parallel working space on Wikidata, which shows an overview as well.
An inclusive view on design and digital culture
We work towards collecting data that represents Dutch design and digital culture in the most diverse way possible.
A core data set of Dutch design, the Nederlands Ontwerp Archief, has been the starting point for the data collection process in this project. Increasingly, the NADD network has focused on aggregating a more diverse dataset of people and organizations, diversifying representation of gender, identity, cultural background, discipline and age.
Protection of personal data
This project refers to publicly available information about creators from the past and about living people.
The right to protection of personal data applies to living people. If you object to the publication of personal data, you can find more information on how to submit an objection in the pages listed below. You can do this, for example, by leaving a note on Wikidata's administrators’ noticeboard or by emailing privacy@wikidata.org with a request to remove that specific information. You can read more about the procedure on these pages:
Also see the information on this topic in NADD's workspace on Wikidata.
Two lists: NADD Wikidata project and NADD creators
We maintain two lists of design and digital culture people and organizations:
- NADD Wikidata project (Q123694075) - Focus list NADD Wikidata project: A longer list (as of May 2025, circa 20,000 names) of people and organizations collected via our broad data curation ingestion process. This list also includes many international names, and many (visual) artists who may have done some design and/or digital work but who are not mainly designers or digital culture creators.
- NADD creators (Q133504755) - Focus list NADD creators: A shorter list (as of May 2025, circa 8,500) names of people and organizations who have ties to the Netherlands (in the broadest sense) and who have been active in design and digital culture occupations.
Occupations and professions in design and digital culture
In the NADD project we maintain a curated selection (controlled vocabulary) of names of occupations and professions that are typical for the sector of design and digital culture.
Data model
Data model
The NADD project follows general data modeling conventions on Wikidata for people and organizations in creative professions.
In addition, we prioritize certain "fields" and Wikidata properties during data ingestion, curation and enrichment, including date- and location-related metadata.
People
Wikidata properties covered in this project:
- sex or gender (P21)
- date of birth (P569)
- place of birth (P19)
- date of death (P570)
- place of death (P20)
- country of citizenship (P27)
- occupation (P106)
- work location (P937)
- has works in the collection (P6379)
- copyright status as a creator (P7763)
- copyright representative (P6275)
- archives at (P485)
- RKDartists ID (P650)
- floruit (P1317)
- employer (P108)
- educated at (P69)
- award received (P166)
- participant in (P1344)
- member of (P463)
- partner in business or sport (P1327)
- notable work (P800)
- field of work (P101)
- movement (P135)
- genre (P136)
- image (P18)
Organizations
Wikidata properties covered in this project:
- instance of (P31)
- inception (P571)
- dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576)
- headquarters location (P159)
- country (P17)
- founder (P112)
- has works in the collection (P6379)
- archives at (P485)
- award received (P166)
- has part(s) (P527)
- replaced by (P1366)
- replaces (P1365)
- field of work (P101)
- RKDartists ID (P650)
- participant in (P1344)
- member of (P463)
- movement (P135)
- genre (P136)
- image (P18)
Data quality
Provenance, verifiability and sourcing
The NADD project provides provenance for the Wikidata items it has created and enriched, by rigorously adding (often multiple) references to statements, and by adding external identifiers to Wikidata items in our scope. We aim to create and curate reliably sourced data to benefit and to help improve the sources of the data - Dutch design and digital culture institutions, and the world at large.
Monitoring and maintenance
We have created dashboards and maintenance lists for monitoring and improving data quality. We set up processes and tools to research and resolve conflicting data found via our data collection processes and discovered by the Wikidata community, such as conflicting birth dates, conflicting information about gender identities, and data modeling idiosyncracies. Help is welcome with these maintenance tasks - many hands make the work lighter!
You can find an overview of our monitoring lists and dashboards at Wikidata:CopyClear/NADD/monitor. Examples of tasks that everyone can contribute to:
- People for whom multiple, sometimes conflicting, birth dates have been found in various sources. After thorough research, the correct date of birth (P569) statement can be set to "preferred" and the incorrect one to "deprecated"
- Multiple people with the same RKDartists identifier. Often, but not always, these can be merged, but caution is needed!
Join and contribute!
Advisors
Data on Wikidata is selected and enriched with the help of advisors and experts. Not everyone has to edit Wikidata directly! As an advisor, you can also help by supplying the NADD team with lists of names, by adding comments to existing lists from Wikidata, by recommending key publications, by connecting the project with other people, and so on.
Advisors:
- drs. Gerda Brust, art historian and editor-in-chief of the ceramics and glass magazine Vormen uit Vuur (specialization: postwar Dutch ceramics)
- Robert van Rixtel, designer; initiator and organizer of many publications and projects about designers, such as Dutch Graphic Roots (specialization: graphic designers born between 1950 and 1970)
We are looking to grow this network of advisors, especially in areas and domains that are not yet covered here. Have you researched an aspect of Dutch design and digital culture and would you like to contribute? Get in touch.
Dutch design and digital culture on Wikipedia
To help the field of Dutch design and digital culture become more visible online, the Network Archives Design and Digital Culture supports the creation and improvement of Wikipedia articles.
Many subpages of this NADD portal include lists of people and organizations, with columns indicating whether they have a Wikipedia article in Dutch and/or English.