Presented at Amigos Library Services online conference, Discovery Tools Now and in the Future, November 18, 2014

1. Linked Data, Library Users, and
the Discovery Tools of the Future
Emily Dust Nimsakont
Cataloging Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission
Discovery Tools Now and In the Future
Amigos Online Conference
November 18, 2014
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/24178168@N07/6816581064/

2. What is a discovery tool?
“Discovery Layers are a relatively new software
component for libraries that provide a search
interface for users to find information held in the
library’s catalog and beyond. Typically, a Discovery
Layer is based on an enterprise search platform that
can interact with a metadata index and will
normally include additional features that allow your
library to customize the search results.”
https://foss4lib.org/decision-support/discovery-layer-ssm/
definition

3. What is a discovery tool?
“Discovery products provide an interface with
search and retrieval capabilities, often with
features such as relevancy-based ordering of
search results, facets presented that can be
selected to narrow results according to specific
categories, contributors, or date ranges, and
tools to identify related materials or to refine
search queries.”
http://librarytechnology.org/discovery/

4. What is Linked Data?
“Linked Data is about using the Web to connect
related data that wasn't previously linked, or
using the Web to lower the barriers to linking
data currently linked using other methods.”
http://linkeddata.org

5. What is Linked Data?
Linked Data “describes a method of publishing
structured data so that it can be interlinked and
become more useful. It builds upon standard Web
technologies such as HTTP, RDF and URIs, but rather
than using them to serve web pages for human
readers, it extends them to share information in a
way that can be read automatically by computers.
This enables data from different sources to be
connected and queried.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_data

6. resource
resource
resource
resource
resource links to
links to
links to
links to

7. data links to
data data
links to
links to
data
links to
data
data
data
data
data
data
data
data

8. HTML
<h1>This is a heading.</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>

9. RDF/XML
<rdf:Description
rdf:about="http://www.recshop.fake/cd/Empi
re Burlesque">
<cd:artist>Bob Dylan</cd:artist>
<cd:country>USA</cd:country>
<cd:company>Columbia</cd:company>
<cd:price>10.90</cd:price>
<cd:year>1985</cd:year>
</rdf:Description>
http://www.w3schools.com/rdf/rdf_example.asp

10. Relationships are key
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-starr/3509344100/

11. We are used to connecting pieces of information
based on their context.
Title: A Christmas Carol
Author: Charles Dickens

12. Linked Data makes the relationships
explicit.
predicate
subject object
A Christmas
Carol
Charles
Dickens
has
author

13. Relationships can be established
between data from various resources.
Linking Open Data cloud diagram 2014, by Max Schmachtenberg, Christian Bizer, Anja Jentzsch and Richard Cyganiak. http://lod-cloud.net/

14. What do these two things have in
common?
Discovery
Tools
Linked
Data
Facets
Related
Materials

15. What differences exist between these
two things?
Discovery
Tools
Linked
Data
Relevance
Ranking
Linked Open
Data

16. Do libraries have
to choose
between the two?
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/67495976@N00/2699584043/

17. Linked Data, RDA, and BIBFRAME

18. RDA
• Resource Description and Access
• Replacement for AACR2 cataloging rules
• Breaks bibliographic information into data
elements
• Focuses on relationships
• http://rdatoolkit.org

19. BIBFRAME
• Replacement for MARC (Machine Readable
Cataloging)
• Linked Data model
• Similar (though not identical) terminology to
RDA
• http://bibframe.org

20. OpenCat
http://demo.cubicweb.org/opencatfresnes

21. LibHub
http://libhub.org

22. Advantages of using Linked Data for
discovery tools
• More flexible than current situation
• More integrated than ILS + discovery layer

23. Disadvantages of using Linked Data for
discovery tools
• Are ILS vendors ready?
• Linked Data vs. Linked Open Data
• What exactly should be “discoverable”? Do
your library users care about outside
resources?

24. Thank you!
Emily Dust Nimsakont
Cataloging Librarian
Nebraska Library Commission
emily.dust.nimsakont@nebraska.gov
http://delicious.com/enimsakont/discovery