In 2012, historians and computer scientists at VU University Amsterdam started a project dealing with an important dataset in the field of history and literary studies: the Short Title Catalogue, Netherlands (STCN). The STCN is a retrospective bibliography compiled by the National Library of the Netherlands and contains descriptions of over 200.000 Dutch publications from the period 1540-1800. These descriptions are disclosed by using the Picarta/OCLC standards. In order to facilitate more complex querying capabilities than is possible via the Picarta search interface, we convert the STCN dataset into Linked Open Data (LOD). We aim at 5-star Digital Humanities data by making this dataset available on the Web in a machine-readable manner, using non-proprietary formats, leveraging W3C standards and linking it to other related datasets. In converting the STCN to LOD we have the following goals:

Extend the STCN with relevant related information from other datasets
Standardize the vocabulary that is used by the STCN in order to improve the quality and interoperability with other datasets
Allow queries to be answered that could not be asked before