Presentation on the experience and learning of The European Library and Research Libraries UK (RLUK) in creating a set of Linked Open Data based on some 19 million bibliographic records

1. Nuno Freire, The European Library
Michael Mertens, Research Libraries UK

2. Outline
•Library Linked Open Data: Some Motivations
•The Linked Open Data publication process
•Linking aggregated library data: conclusions so far
•Current status of Linked Open Data publication at The
European Library
•RLUK’s perspective on Linked Open Data
•Next steps

3. Library LOD: Some Motivations
Why use Linked Open Data (LOD) to disseminate libraries and their resources?
LOD provides a set of procedures and technical standards to allow the reuse of
data across communities.
LOD allows for:
● Opening access to the data
… in order to allow others to obtain, process and re-use the data.
● Linking the data to other datasets
… in order to allow others to find the data more easily, better understand
its meaning, match it with other data...
… to enable new use cases

4. Library LOD: Some Motivations
Linking data makes it more precise and informative.
Data links allow computers to better understand the data, enabling more use cases.

5. Linked data is not new to libraries, and its value clearly realized
● Libraries have perceived the value of linked data for decades:
o Authority files, union catalogues, ...
● Library data is already contributing with LOD datasets which are being re-used across all
communities
Nowadays LOD framework addresses the same benefits:
● but beyond libraries … at a global level … across all communities.
The precision of Linked Data is particularly important for re-use in research and Virtual Research
Environments
Library LOD: Some Motivations

6. Overview of the LOD publication process
● Choosing a licence for granting copyright permissions to the data
● Setting up the required infrastructure for the LOD technical requirements
o Requirements for publishing the data
o Requirements for linking the data

7. Overview of the LOD publication process
● LOD technical requirements for publishing the data
 Which data model to use
 How to structure the URIs
 Supporting the protocols (as specified in the W3C LOD platform)
 Providing bulk download of the data
 Supporting querying protocols (optional)

8. Overview of the LOD publication process
● LOD technical requirements for linking the data
 Links promote data re-use and enable new use cases
 The potential targets for linking are endless:
● Which data to link?
● Where to link to?
● How precisely to link?

9. Overview of the LOD publication process
● Publishing LOD is demanding:
● Requires considerable human and computational resources
● Requires a large range of expertise:
o in information science
o in semantic technology
● This process may be leveraged on the infrastructure provided by aggregation
networks

10. Library LOD
Leveraging on aggregation networks
Aggregation networks may provide:
● An existing information and communication technology infrastructure
● Technical expertise may be focused on the aggregating organizations
● Centralized data, enabling for more linking to be established
o Linking bibliographic within aggregated data is easier than across distributed
datasets
o Each library benefit from the linking done for other libraries
o Each external dataset liked to, benefits all libraries’ data

11. Linked Open Datasets at The European Library
Two datasets are available
● The RLUK Dataset
o The dataset was the focus of the RLUK
Hack Day
o It is a subset of the RLUK database
comprising nearly 20 milliOn
bibliographic records from 34 libraries.
● The European Library Open Dataset
o Data from 15 contries
o Over 60 million Bibliographic Resources
o Size is likely to double during 2014/2015
o Formalization of data distribution agreements
with partner libraries is underway
http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/access

12. RLUK’s view #1
● Why we partnered with The European Library
● #RLUKHack day - what developers tried to do
● So, LOD for libraries has arrived!
● Libraries produce it - why aren’t they using it? (or are they?)
● Why consume LOD?
● Open Data-Theory is nice; agility, skills and benefits even nicer?
● How to create a more viable environment?
○ Establish a library developer/coder/programmer base
○ Better awareness of tools
○ Partnerships between developers and librarians
○ Encourage greater documentation of existing APIs
● Need for a vision of more library and vendor engagement.

13. RLUK’s View #2
● A Few Examples of those currently aiming to build services using LOD
○ AMSL
○ National Library of Sweden
○ Oslo Public Library
○ Linked Jazz
● You can have your (Opac) Cake and Eat it (the Web), too.
● The European Library and RLUK view on taking LOD forward: Collection Level Descriptions as next
published LOD.
● A European Hack Day…

14. Strategic Partnership
● Why we partnered with The European Library
○ Based on a formal investigation of potential LOD service providers, The European Library was the
most cost effective and sustainable choice
○ Part of a broader network, including CERL and Europeana, who had also worked on LOD
● The strategic thinking behind our creation of Linked Open Data
○ Sticking to RLUK’s open principles - “Open Access” is not just about journals!
○ Ensuring we could comply with changes to European PSI (Public Sector Information) Directive, which
includes museums, libraries and archives for the first time
○ Provide more impetus to libraries in the UK consuming and using LOD as well as producing it
○ Push in new directions regarding overall library skills base
.

15. (RL)UK context
● Observations on UK LOD Context
○ “Infrastructure”=Datasets, Projects, Systems, Capacity and Skills based on LOD
■ Headlining datasets from The British Library, University of Cambridge, Archives Hub, British
Museum
■ Projects by Archives Hub, King’s College London and others
■ Internal Systems at British Library and University of Cambridge
■ Developer Capacity at BL_Labs and a relative handful of libraries
■ ….
● The Hack Day itself - who came, what they tried to do, successes and feedback:
○ A mix of library-based developers, digital humanists, postgraduates researching LOD, self-styled
“hackers”, systems librarians, repository programmers, and academics interested in data

16. What “hackers’ aimed atwith RLUK LOD
● Linking a WWI diary to digitised newspapers
and other datasets.
● Develop a Chrome web browser extension
that matched named entities on The
European Library portal with individuals
with same date of birth
● Create an interface where users could
explore LOD at their chosen level of
complexity.
● Inform a dissertation on LOD.
● Populate a learning exercise with
information on German and Russian
experiences of WWI.
● Exploring the dataset to find out more
about data structures.

17. So, LOD forlibraries has arrived! Where should we gonext?
● We seem to have come a long way - search on Slideshare for “Linked Open Data”
gives some 3,500 presentations, for “LOD” there are over 13,000. No longer
esoteric?
● Libraries in Europe have been publishing LOD in earnest for some 6 years - just 3
national libraries alone (BL, BNF, DNB) have produced tens of millions of items of
LOD
● Everything from bibliographic, authority information to vocabularies
● By contrast only a handful of UK HE libraries are consuming LOD to create their
own services

18. Libraries produce it -why aren’t they using it? (orare they?)
● Creating and publishing LOD does take considerable resource
● Impression that consuming LOD would be just as resource-hungry?
● Motivations to date have been (largely) intangible for institutions, and directed
towards external factors (new audiences beyond libraries, linking to and becoming
part of Semantic Web)
● Rise of the Machine - by definition a focus on connecting to other machine-
readable datasets
● If for humans, then always for “other people”: “The best thing to do with your
data will be thought of by someone else”
● But who knows your library’s needs better than you?

19. So, why consume LOD?
(From http://semanticpublishing.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/lld6-catalogues-and-linked-data/)
Better enrichment and contextualisation (de-siloisation):
“For example, by recordingthe dates and geographical coordinatesrelating to ancient documents
held by the Bodleian Libraries, and to the sitesdescribed in its archaeological publications, and by
mappingthese coordinates onto Google Mapsor some other useful mapping system, togetherwith
similar data held at Cambridge University, it would be possiblefor a scholarfrom Swedento see
at a glancethat Cambridgeholds early descriptions of archeaological sites at Nimrud and Nineveh
in ancient Mesopotamia, together witha large number of Mesopotamian written documents
dating back 3000 years, while the Sackler Library in Oxfordis particularly rich in papyri and
information about Egyptian archaeological sites, while also having good holdingson cuneiform
languages and Assyrian reliefs.”

20. So, why consume LOD? #2
With vast, exponential amounts of data & information on the Web, it’s better than
search:
“In the search for new drugs to treat Alzheimer Disease, a researcher may wish to knows the answer to the
following biological question:
“What proteins are involved in cellular signal transduction, and are related to pyramidal neurons?”
A Google search on that question gave ~223,000 hits in 2007, none of which provided a specific answer.
However, a search over the linked healthcare data, made in collaboration with the W3C Health Care and Life
Science Interest Group, gave 32 responses, each one of which was the name of a specific protein involved both
in signal transduction and related to pyramidal neurons.”
(This week, in 2014, the same Google search will result in some 3.2 million hits.)
(From http://semanticpublishing.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/linked-data-101/)

21. LOD DIY. Just a Nice Theory?
● Improve on or augment existing offerings (see below)
● Broaden library skills base (use & make sense of data)
● Open data - reclaim agility for research support development
● Greater ability to match speed of electronic content business
models
● Overcome “format hell” and information siloing (link and
relate information from galleries, libraries, archives and
museums)
● Linking information from different campus systems
● Greater support for digital humanities

22. Exampleofimproving aservice forusers withabitofLODmagic(ThankstoOwenStephens)

23. Tim Sherrat’s alternative interface

24. Shopping list of elements in consuming and using LOD more effectively?
● Need for vision: library and vendor engagement (“our system
only uses linked data-like concepts”)
● Need for developer base
● Awareness of tools
● Partnerships between developers and librarians
● Librarians as developers
● Encourage greater documentation of existing APIs

25. AFew Examples of those currently building services using LOD
● AMSL-A linked data basis for Electronic Resource Management based at SLUB
Dresden and Leipzig University Library.
● LIBRIS Consortium and Swedish National Library
● Oslo Public Library OPAC
● Linked Jazz, a research project based at the Pratt Institute School of Information
and Library Science

26. AMSL 1
● AMSL - A linked data basis for Electronic Resource Management based at SLUB
Dresden and Leipzig University Library.
● Funded by the European Union (EFRE) and the Free State of Saxony.
● Uses tools (OntoWiki) developed at the Institute of Applied Informatics (InfAI),
University of Leipzig under the LOD2 project (7th EU Framework Programme).
● Business models regarding e-media acquisition are changing rapidly. “Our
acquisition department longed for a very flexible way to manage e-resources in
future”.

27. AMSL 2
Decision flow for selecting Linked Open Data
● Looked for a very flexible solution that could be adjusted by
ourselves.
● Required a flexible data model
● Emphasis on the management of business data and best
approach for data integration, linking and enrichment
● Tested against commercial offerings (which were too fixed)

28. AMSL 3
Aim - to make using Linked Open Data as easy as WYSIWYG web
editing:
“Our Data Management Platform [enables]
librarians with limited or no IT background
to model and configure transformation
procedures, data schemas and queries.”

29. AMSL 4

30. LIBRIS
● Swedish Union Catalogue, Directory of Libraries, library infrastructure and OPAC;
approximately 6.5 m records, over 22 million holdings, contains some 180
academic, research and public libraries
● The Swedish National Library (Kungliga Biblioteket KB) released its catalogue as
Linked Open Data in 2008
● Since 2012, The Swedish National Library (Kungliga Biblioteket KB) has worked on
a new infrastructure and system for the national catalogue, basing its core on
Linked Data
● Has the capacity to mesh with other linked data on the web, through minimal
engineering efforts
● Anticipating BibFrame, replacement for MARC
● Displacing MARC legacy entirely with an LOD-based structure

31. OSLO Public Library
•Announced last month that its catalogue data will be stored as
linked data (within open source Koha ILS)
•Finds linked data a rich metadata model more suitable for future
needs than the library specific MARC-format.
•LOD enables it to use the same metadata format for its physical
collection and its digital content
•Provides a good foundation for search, presentation and
integration with other content, internally and externally

32. OSLO Public Library #2
“RDF opens a new world of possibilities as
to how we can connect our metadata with
data from other relevant resources. We will
pursue data harvesting from other sources,
which mean we can add value to our core
content, and harvesting of basic
bibliographic data to facilitate the
cataloguing process.”

33. Linked Jazz 1
“Research into the possibilities for linked open data
applications within digital scholarship remains wide
open. While a number of research projects are currently
exploring methods and tools to clean and open up data
for use in linked open data environments, the field of
digital scholarship lacks a critical mass of these efforts.”
(Linked Jazz: Building with Linked Open Data, Leanora Lange, the Center for Jewish History & Cristina Pattuelli,
School of Information and Library Science at the Pratt Institute). 30 June, 2014.

34. Linked Jazz 2

35. Next Steps for RLUK & The European Library
● Collection Level Descriptions
o Usecases have already been identified in digital humanites
o Publication as LOD
● European Hack Day
o A concertation of several LOD efforts from the library domain

36. Final Thought
"We hope someone shares our dream of a
full-fledged RDF library system. Please get
in touch if you do! :)”
(OSLO Public Library, 19 June, 2014)

37. Contact and acknowledgements
Nuno Freire: nuno.freire@theeuropeanlibrary.org
Mike Mertens: mike.mertens@rluk.ac.uk @RLUK_Mike
Thanks to David Shotton (University of Oxford) and Silvio Peroni (University of Bologna) for
material for slides 19 & 20, from The Semantic Publishing Blog.
Thanks to Tim Sherrat (via Owen Stephens) for slides 22 & 23
Headline image, ‘Castle of Light’ by Bernt Rostad https://www.flickr.com/photos/brostad/
Linked Open Data Lifecycle by Michael Haschke https://www.flickr.com/photos/haschek/
“Stop Hugging Your Data” by Amy https://www.flickr.com/photos/_-amy-_/ (via Paul Miller)