Linked Data, Library Users, and the Discovery Tools of the Future

Emily Dust NimsakontCataloging Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission

Discovery Tools Now and In the FutureAmigos Online Conference

November 18, 2014

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/24178168@N07/6816581064/

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

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/

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

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

resource

resource

resource

resource

resourcelinks to

links to

links to

links to

data links to

links to

links to

links to

data data

data

data

datadata

data

data

data

data

data

HTML

<h1>This is a heading.</h1>

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>

RDF/XML

<rdf:Descriptionrdf:about="http://www.recshop.fake/cd/Empire 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

Relationships are key

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-starr/3509344100/

We are used to connecting pieces of information based on their context.

Title: A Christmas Carol

Author: Charles Dickens

Linked Data makes the relationships explicit.

subject object

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

has author

predicate

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/

What do these two things have in common?

Discovery Tools

Linked Data

Facets

Related Materials

What differences exist between these two things?

Discovery Tools

Linked Data

Relevance Ranking

Linked OpenData

Do libraries have to choose

between the two?

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Linked Data, RDA, and BIBFRAME

RDA

• Resource Description and Access

• Replacement for AACR2 cataloging rules

• Breaks bibliographic information into data elements

• Focuses on relationships

• http://rdatoolkit.org

BIBFRAME

• Replacement for MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging)

• Linked Data model

• Similar (though not identical) terminology to RDA

• http://bibframe.org

OpenCat

http://demo.cubicweb.org/opencatfresnes

LibHub

http://libhub.org

Advantages of using Linked Data for discovery tools

• More flexible than current situation

• More integrated than ILS + discovery layer

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?

Thank you!

Emily Dust Nimsakont

Cataloging Librarian

Nebraska Library Commission

emily.dust.nimsakont@nebraska.gov

http://delicious.com/enimsakont/discovery