A Jeff Young presentation for co-asis&t on the emerging topic of Linked Data and how libraries of all kinds can extend their interaction with the Web. For more information visit our website:http://www.asis.org/Chapters/coasis

1. November 13, 2012
CO-ASIS&T
Linked Data:
Libraries and Beyond
Jeff Young
OCLC Research
The world’s libraries. Connected.

2. Introductory Video
• Linked Data for Libraries (~15 minutes)
The world’s libraries. Connected.

3. What is Linked Data?
A method of publishing structured data based on
an ontology, using HTTP URI's as identifiers so
Structured Data
that information can be linked within and across
web domains.
URIs are the Identifiers
The world’s libraries. Connected.

4. What is an ontology?
A representation of knowledge as a set of
concepts within a Classes and the
domain,
Attributes concepts. This
relationships between those
Relationships
is typically the output of formal data
modeling.
Individuals
The world’s libraries. Connected.

5. Mechanisms for Interoperability
• Humans and machines share the same http URI-
based API
• RDFa/Microdata markup embedded in HTML
• Content-negotiation (Cool URIs for the Semantic Web)
• RDF meta-model
• Statement-based syntax (triple)
• Domain-specific vocabulary specifications
(RDFS/OWL)
The world’s libraries. Connected.

6. 4 Rules (“Steps”) of Linked Data
1. Use URIs as names for things
2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up
those names
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful
information, using the standards (RDF*,
SPARQL)
4. Include links to other URIs, so that they can
discover more things
The world’s libraries. Connected.

7. Is Your Data 5 Star?
 Available on the web (whatever format), but with an open license
 Available as machine-readable structured data (e.g. excel instead of image
scan of a table)
 As (2), plus: non-proprietary format (e.g. CSV instead of excel)
 All the above, plus: Use open standards from W3C (RDF and
SPARQL) to identify things, so that people can point at your stuff
 All the above, plus: Link your data to other people’s data to provide
context
The world’s libraries. Connected.

8. Your Dataset Name Here
1 Rule 2 Rules 3 Rules 4 Rules
(URIs as (+HTTP URIs) (+Cool (+Crosslinks)
names) URIs)
1 Star
(On the Web) Push
2 Stars
(+machine data) The Linked
3 Stars Data Corner
(+open format)
4 Stars
(+RDF format)
5 Stars
(+Crosslinks)
*Approximate or caveats
The world’s libraries. Connected.

9. Your Dataset Name Here
1 Rule 2 Rules 3 Rules 4 Rules
(URIs as (+HTTP URIs) (+Cool (+Crosslinks)
names) URIs)
1 Star
(On the Web)
2 Stars
(+machine data) The Linked
P Data Corner
3 Stars u
(+open format)
s
h
4 Stars
(+RDF format)
5 Stars
(+Crosslinks)
*Approximate or caveats
The world’s libraries. Connected.

10. Your “Things” in the Cloud
1 Rule 2 Rules 3 Rules 4 Rules
(URIs as (+HTTP URIs) (+Cool (+Crosslinks)
names) URIs)
1 Star
(On the Web)
2 Stars
P
(+machine data) u
s
3 Stars
(+open format)
h
e
d
4 Stars
(+RDF format)
5 Stars
Pushed Linked
(+Crosslinks)
Data
*Approximate or caveats
The world’s libraries. Connected.

11. OCLC Releases
Schema.org + Library markup
Worldcat.org
June 20, 2012
June 19, 2012
Dewey Team Releases All
Levels plus captions as
April 17, 2012 Linked Data
OCLC proposes ODC-By
License at Global Council
April 15, 2012
OCLC Board of Trustees
January 1, 2012 discusses ODC-BY License
VIAF formally transitions to
OCLC 2012
Dec 14, 2011
OCLC Releases FAST as

12. What is Schema.org?
Schema.org is a collaboration between Bing,
Google, Yahoo, and Yandex (Russian search
engine). It is an agreed ontology for harvesting
structured data from the web that creates
efficiencies for the engines and allows sites more
control of what is important to publish.
The world’s libraries. Connected.

13. Why is it important for OCLC?
What a cataloger does today…
The world’s libraries. Connected.

14. Why is it important for OCLC?
What linked data allows catalogers to do…
The world’s libraries. Connected.

15. Why is it important for OCLC?
What linked data allows catalogers to do…
The world’s libraries. Connected.

16. Why is it important for libraries?
[craft the elements of the house]
The world’s libraries. Connected.

17. Why is it important for libraries?
The world’s libraries. Connected.

18. Why is it important for libraries?
The world’s libraries. Connected.

19. Why is it important for libraries?
The world’s libraries. Connected.

20. Real Browser Plug-in Example
The world’s libraries. Connected.

21. More Information
• Core Principles
• Linked Data – Design Issues
• Starter videos
• Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web
• What is Linked Data?
• Danbri has moved on – should we follow?
• Linked Data for Libraries
• Core/starter vocabularies
• Schema.org
• GoodRelations (recently integrated into Schema.org)
The world’s libraries. Connected.