“In the Early Days of a Better Nation”

Enhancing the power of metadata today with linked data principles

John Mark OckerbloomUniversity of Pennsylvania Libraries

NISO Virtual Conference – October 2014

04/09/2023 University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Photo of Scottish Parliament building by Bernt Rostad, 2011licensed CC-BY: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brostad/5841841020/

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Linking Open Data cloud diagram 2011, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch http://lod-cloud.net/ Licensed CC-BY-SA

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Linking Open Data cloud diagram 2014, by Max Schmachtenberg, Christian Bizer,Anja Jentzsch and Richard Cyganiak. http://lod-cloud.net/ Licensed CC-BY-SA

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OCLC Library Survey: Summer 2014

• 76 linked data projects described (with 46 more mentioned) in an open solicitation– 25 (only) consume linked data

• Consumption primarily to enhance their own data

– 4 (only) publish linked data• Publication primarily to gain exposure, demonstrate

– 47 both consume and publish linked data• More details (and implementation advice):http

://oclc.org/research/news/2014/09-19.html

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Sir Tim’s Linked Data Principles

• Use URIs as names for things• Use HTTP(S) URIs so names can be looked up• Upon lookup, provide useful information “using

the standards (RDF*, SPARQL)”• Include links to other URIs, so more things can be

discovered

(Tim Berners Lee, “Linked Data”, 2009:http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html )

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A more functional (& fuzzy) take

• Use unambiguous identifiers for things• …that can be looked up on the Web• …that provide data a machine can interpret and process

usefully, without human intervention• …that can be easily related to data from other sources

Also important:Open, easy accessCommitment to support the data for its users

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Linked open data: Not a 1-step process

(Catalog photo for W3C’s “5 star linked open data” mug, available for purchase at http://www.cafepress.com/w3c_shop.597992118 )

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How open can you get?

• Maximally open: CC0, Public Domain Dedication– Relinquishes legal control; not necessarily other norms– Examples: UI original bib records; DPLA; WikiData

• Attribution only: ODC-BY, CC-BY– Examples: WorldCat bib data; UI OCLC records– Lightweight attributions: collection-level; original URIs

• “Copyleft” or Share-Alike: CC-BY-SA– More cumbersome, but used by Wikipedia & derivatives

(including DBPedia)– Note that data might not be copyrightable

• Not really “open”: CC-NC, CC-NDUniversity of Pennsylvania Libraries

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VIVO: RDF etc.; days to harvest

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Elements: Tables & spreadsheets; seconds or minutes to generate

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(From Penn’s Symplectic Elements service)

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Use cases: Discoverability

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(From Schema.org web site)

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Modeling library collections in schema.org

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From https://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/wiki/Holdings_via_Offer

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Publishing open data on the Web

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# Cattype data file for Forward to Libraries Service# Ed. by John Mark Ockerbloom, University of Pennsylvania# (contact details at everybodyslibraries.com)# This data file released to the world as CC0# (though appropriate attribution appreciated)# See docs file for documentation, libraries file for usage of this catalog data# Last updated 2014-09-04

CATTYPE 360search SUBURL ${BASEURL}/results?SS_LibHash=${LCODE}&action=start&dbIDList=${DBID}&field=subject&term=${ARG}AUTURL ${BASEURL}/results?SS_LibHash=${LCODE}&action=start&dbIDList=${DBID}&field=author&term=${ARG}TITURL ${BASEURL}/results?SS_LibHash=${LCODE}&action=start&dbIDList=${DBID}&field=title&term=${ARG}KEYURL ${BASEURL}/results?SS_LibHash=${LCODE}&action=start&dbIDList=${DBID}&field=keyword&term=${ARG}

CATTYPE aleph1TINDEX TTLSUBURL ${BASEURL}/F/?func=find-b&find_code=SUB&local_base=${LCODE}&request=${ARG} (…)

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Publishing open data on the Web

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# Libraries data file for Forward to Libraries Service# Ed. by John Mark Ockerbloom, University of Pennsylvania# (…)

ID OCLC-WCDGLNAME Worldcat.orgCOUNTRY 00LOCATION Union catalog of more than 10,000 libraries worldwideBASEURL http://www.worldcat.org/searchCATTYPE worldcat

ID AU-ANU NAME Australian National UniversityLOCATION Canberra, ACTCOUNTRY AUCATTYPE summonBASEURL http://anu.summon.serialssolutions.com (…)

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Hubs: Common reference points for communicating, understanding data

• Common vocabularies– Schema.org; VIVO ontology; BIBFRAME– RDF itself (and JSON…)

• Common identifiers– ISSN; DOI; VIAF; OCLC’s bibliographic & library identifiers– Traditional authority headings, Wikipedia (have to deal w ID change)

• Common corpuses of data– Bibliographic records from HathiTrust, Harvard, Illinois, etc.– OCLC’s WorldCat, WorldCat Registry; VIAF, etc.– Authorities & thesauri (LC, Getty, etc.), DBPedia, Wikidata

• Facilitate communities that use & improve data– Wikimedia’s great strength

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Building on shared & linked data

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In summary• Lots of open data out there libraries can use– Lots more they can contribute

• Making it as easy as possible for interested users to find & reuse your data makes big difference– Optimize the top priorities for your users– But support broad audience (standards help here)

• Find, and work with, your hubs

• Commitment, openness, & community ties keyUniversity of Pennsylvania Libraries

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Questions!

• John Mark Ockerbloom– ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu– @JMarkOckerbloom– http://EverybodysLibraries.com/

All content original to this presentation is licensed CC-BY

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