Re: Federated directory of social services - could Façade-X help?

Hi Enrico and Justin,

Thanks a lot for your input, I will definitely give SPARQL Anything a go!

Martynas, your approach of going directly via the API also sounds
interesting. If you choose to open-source it, I'd love to try it out.

Best wishes
Benjamin

On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 11:04 AM Enrico.Daga <enrico.daga@open.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi Benjamin,
>
> > The plan is to convert the heterogeneous sources (we expect a mix of
> APIs with JSON output, HTML scraping, CSV files, etc.) into one RDF schema.
>
> This is exactly the scenario for which facade-x was made. At the moment,
> the reference open-source implementation is SPARQL Anything (but I am aware
> of several proprietary implementations in the works). To complement what
> Justin said, you can also look at these tutorials [1], which include
> examples of Web APIs and HTML scraping (such as the IMMA museum website).
>
> Finally, feel free to join the group. We also welcome case studies
> relevant to the standardisation process we are working on, including
> suggestions for improving facade-x or the available mappings.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Enrico
>
>
> [1] https://sparql-anything.readthedocs.io/stable/TUTORIALS/
>
>
>
> --
> Enrico Daga, PhD
> Senior Research Fellow
> Knowledge Media Institute
> The Open University
> http://enridaga.net
> http://sparql-anything.cc
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Justin Dowdy <thejustman85@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* 26 March 2026 13:12
> *To:* Benjamin Degenhart <benjamin.degenhart@foerderfunke.org>
> *Cc:* public-facade-x@w3.org <public-facade-x@w3.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Federated directory of social services - could Façade-X
> help?
>
>
> External email: if the sender or content looks suspicious, please click
> the Report Message icon, or forward it to report-phishing
> SPARQL Anything is an ideal tool for producing RDF from structured data.
> Take a look at the quick start section to see an example of how that is
> done for a CSV file:
>
> https://github.com/SPARQL-Anything/sparql.anything?tab=readme-ov-file#quickstart
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2026, 7:47 AM Benjamin Degenhart <
> benjamin.degenhart@foerderfunke.org> wrote:
>
> Dear Data Façades Community Group,
>
> I am following your work with curiosity and wanted to reach out regarding
> an upcoming project. As a freelance software developer I will be working
> with the Civic Data Lab, a Ministry-funded NGO in Germany. The goal is to
> create a federated directory of social counseling services in Germany. We
> will fetch data from the databases of various organisations that
> already maintain parts of this directory. The plan is to convert
> the heterogeneous sources (we expect a mix of APIs with JSON output, HTML
> scraping, CSV files, etc.) into one RDF schema. This schema will build on
> existing vocabulary (e.g. the Core Public Organisation Vocabulary from
> SEMIC) and gradually mature as we solve the challenges of integrating all
> these sources while simultaneously working on the usage scenarios of this
> new federated directory. So our challenge will be exactly as you put it: a
> "homogeneous view over heterogeneous data sources."
>
> Is the Façade-X method something I could use here? What approaches would
> you recommend? Which libraries are already usable?
> I'd really appreciate your thoughts and advice on this.
>
> Best regards
> Benjamin Degenhart
> www.linkedin.com/in/bdegenhart
>
>