Karen Coyle - Linked Data Tools: Connecting on the Web

(Everything flows, nothing stands still.)

Heraclitus

I t doesnt take a great philosopher to know that writing about an emerging technology is like trying to record a river that is flowing past faster than one can put words to paper. Even in the months that can pass during the writing process, significant changes can take place. That knowledge can become an invitation to procrastination or the author can simply accept that no treatise will be entirely complete or up-to-date. My goal, therefore, is not to be exhaustive but to offer a mental model for working with the Semantic Web in the form of linked data. In particular, I wish to show that the foundational resources, in the form of standards, data element sets, and term lists, have been developed to a point that it is possible to see how the parts will fit together. There is also beginning to be enough linked data content to highlight the gaps that need to be filled. I also wish to emphasize that it is the nature of the Web of knowledge that no lists or schemes or collections will ever be considered complete.

Introduction

Abstract

Chapter 1 is the Introduction to this issue of Library Technology Reports. Library activities in recent years, particularly those that have contemplated the future of bibliographic control, have given libraries a theoretical basis for the move from traditional catalogs to the Web as a data platform. Library catalogs have already evolved to federate resources from external locations and to bring in data from remote sources. FRBR, RDA, and the commitment of the Library of Congress to a new bibliographic framework all point libraries in the direction of shared, linked data.

T he world today is clearly not that of our library predecessors, of Dewey and Cutter, not even of Lubetzky or even Gorman. The changes that have taken place since the introduction of the personal computer and the globalization of communication over the World Wide Web are huge, and they affect in particular anyone involved in knowledge research and creation. Lets do a brief environment scan.

Todays world is highly computerized; we have computers on our desks, in our pockets, and even in our pens. It isnt, however, the cold, oppressive, machine-like computerization of 1950s science fiction. The amount of user interaction is astonishing, even ignoring the edge cases of the teenagers who send hundreds of text messages a day or the constant Tweeters. Users expect to have an effect on their virtual world, even if that only means creating their own Facebook page. Facebook is in fact a prime example of user-created content, along with Flickr, YouTube videos, blogs, and Tweets.

The spread of global computing has overthrown some of our previous assumptions about institutions and power. The do-it-yourself information system can be personal and political, as we have seen with efforts like WikiLeaks and with the fact that some bloggers now have the publics ear in a way that was once reserved for network news celebrities.

Todays resources are either becoming digital or already born digital. This is not the end of print, but print is definitely becoming a format of the past. Few college students today would consider print to be a modern technology, although many undoubtedly still find it useful at times. Digital resources are relatively easy to find (through keyword searching) and to obtain (because they are online), but they can be hard to use because they require specific technical skills. They also require devices that add a new cost to the use of information. Users are dependent on software tools that are not controlled by the library and may not work as well as is desired. Access often means obtaining a copy that the user then needs to manage.

Yet todays users expect to work independently without prior instruction; they have come to expect the single search box as their interface.

The entire concept of communication is changing. Communication is increasingly remote and asynchronous, not face-to-face and in real time. There is a rise of new media (especially video) over old (text): increasingly, instruction is provided in video format rather than textual documentation.