introducing linked data
DESCRIPTION
Non-technical presentation on linked data to information services/reference library staffTRANSCRIPT
Introducing Linked DataISD SpotlightPresented by Alison Hitchens2013
Introducing Linked Data
2
Objective To introduce the concept of linked data
without too much technical stuff!
(because every conference you attend these days mentions linked data or linked open data or linked library data or linked open library data!)(or you will see tweets with #lod #lodlam)
Introducing Linked Data
3
Definition of 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.” (emphasis added)From Wikipedia linked data page
Introducing Linked Data
4
Human-readable vs. machine-actionable* Look at this Wikipedia page and tell me
what you know about Margaret Atwood from looking at the page
*rather than machine-readable, library consultant Karen Coyle often uses the term actionable data, which I find easier to understand. See her Library Technology Report on the semantic web.
Introducing Linked Data
5
The classic web
Margaret Atwood Wikipedia
Margaret Atwood homepage
resource resource
Click on link text or URL
URL
Inspired by a slide by Eric Miller
Introducing Linked Data
6
A linked data web
Inspired by a semantic web slide by Eric Miller
Alison’s guide to Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
person
http://margaretatwood.ca/
Is subject of
Is type of
Has homepageUndefined URL link
Introducing Linked Data
7
Use Structured Data
Textual data
Date
Currency
Introducing Linked Data
8
Identify your data This resource is a person Name: “Margaret Atwood” Birth date: 19391118 Place of birth: Ottawa, Ontario Occupation: novelist Occupation: poet Author of: “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Introducing Linked Data
9
Publish your data on the web The Virtual International Authority File
(VIAF) combines authorities from many national libraries and has made the records available on the web With a permanent identifier In multiple web-friendly formats
Go to Record for Margaret Atwood in VIAF
Introducing Linked Data
10
Make connections Build connections between your data
records and other datasets Many datasets link to DbPedia which is
the data behind Wikipedia
Go to DbPedia page for Margaret Atwood and find the VIAF identifier
Introducing Linked Data
11
The famous linked data cloud The linked data cloud shows the
connections between datasets on the web
Excerpt from: “Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/”
Introducing Linked Data
12
Connect your data This resource is a person
Use class of persons from the Friend of a Friend (FOAF)ontology
Place of birth: Ottawa, Ontario Could link to Geonames
Occupation: novelist Could link to LCSH term
Author of: “The Handmaid’s Tale” Could link to The Open Library page
Introducing Linked Data
13
Library Use Cases* Enrich our bibliographic data Enrich our authority data Align subject vocabularies Share our unique collections and
information
*for our next linked data session!
Introducing Linked Data
14
Some technical stuff* Ideally everything has a uniform
resource identifier (URI) e.g. http://viaf.org/viaf/109322990
Data is modeled using Resource Description Framework (RDF)
Use a common format such as Extensible Markup Language (XML)
*for our next linked data session!
Introducing Linked Data
15
Some resources Colye, Karen. Understanding the semantic web: bibliographic data and
metadata. Chicago: American Library Association, 2010 (Library Technology reports ; v. 46, no. 1) access at http://www.metapress.com.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/content/g212v1783607/ (subscription required)
Harper, Corey. Library linked data: tuning library metadata for the semantic web. An ALCTS webcast, March 16. 2011. access at http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/cat/031611 (open access)
Berners-Lee, Tim. The next web. A TED talk, February 2009. access at http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html (open access)
Heath, Tom and Christian Bizer (2011) Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space. 1st ed. Morgan & Claypool, 2011. (Synthesis Lectures on the Semantic Web: Theory and Technology, 1:1) http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/ (open access)
Introducing Linked Data
16
Acknowledgments Thank you to library consultant Karen
Coyle who explains these concepts in such a straight-forward way
Thank you to Corey Harper at NYU and MJ Suhonos who are very patient and encouraging; they have answered many of my LOD questions and reviewed presentations for me
Introducing Linked Data
17
Thanks!Alison HitchensCataloguing & Metadata LibrarianUniversity of Waterloo [email protected]