A random series of A random series of ideas, concepts, ideas, concepts, Platonic ideals, a Platonic ideals, a

yeoman's yeoman's miscellany, and miscellany, and

nonesuch guide to nonesuch guide to Linked Data, Linked Data,

especially as it especially as it relates to libraries, relates to libraries,

archives, and archives, and museumsmuseums

Martin R. KalfatovicSmithsonian Libraries

AAM 2012Minneapolis, MN

2 May 2012

W

WWW circa 1991

Berners-Lee Schematic

• It’s cool • “Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge”• Share, contribute to a global database• Create context around data• Allow data to be reused/repurposed by

creators and a worldwide community• Improve discoverability of content

Why Linked Open Data?

• Publishing structured data on the web• RDF (Resource Description Framework) • Enables queries computer 2 computer• uses standard ontologies (vocabularies)• data in “triples” (“triplestore”)

So Just what is Linked Data

URIhttp://library.si.edu/tl2/author/charles-darwin

Predicateowl:sameAs

Object http://viaf.org/viaf/27063124

Example of a Triplestore

Some Linked Data Buzzwords, er Standards

RDF, OWL, SPARQL, RDFa, SKOS, RDFS, GRDDL, POWDER, RIF, SAWSDL, RDB2RDF

Linked Data Design Issues

1.Use URIs as names for things.2.Use HTTP URIs so people can look up those things.3.When someone looks up a URI, provide useful

information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL). 4. Include links to other URIs, so they can discover more

things. 

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

“The Semantic Web isn’t just about putting data on the web. It is about making links, so that a person or machine can explore the web of data. With linked data, when you have some of it, you can find other, related, data.”

Tim Berners-Lee, Linked Data – Design Issues

On the web, openMachine-readable dataNon-Propriety formatRDF StandardsLinked RDF

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DBpedia is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web. DBpedia allows you to ask sophisticated queries against Wikipedia, and to link other data sets on the Web to Wikipedia data.

The three sides of the tri-color cube in these logos evoke the triplet of the RDF model. The peeled back lid invites you to Open Your Data to the Semantic Web!

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Towards a Digital Public Library of America

D PL A

+

Towards a Digital Public Library of America

D PL AExpand from current 100,000 record sample set to describe all of records with a common set of terms

Roll this full-size triplestore out to a publicly accessible beta.

Begin to link out to other things, e.g. VIAF

Thanks!

@UDCMRK

To:Keri Thompson

Joel RichardSuzanne Pilsk

Ed SummersTrish Rose-Sandler

Matt Phillips