The report should substantiate its assertions regarding the value of linked data more explicitly. It would be instructive include examples of the benefits derived by other communities.
The British Library welcomes the work of the work of the W3C incubator group on library linked data. The British Library has been experimenting with the practicalities of expression the British National Bibliographic as linked data and our comments draw on this experience.
BL experience illustrates that issues such as identification of the real object distinct from the concept of an object are still very much alive. It seems prudent while such fundamental debates remain unresolved to err on the side of caution and identify both separately. Real work is needed on use cases to illustrate that identification of the real object is sufficient for all needs, not just library requirements.
BL will publish experience of converting BNB from MARC 21 to LOD. In principle, BL is also open to publishing information on the tools employed and where possible, the tools themselves.
The tools are only part of the equation; the expertise necessary for their effective deployment should not be underestimated. BL’s experience certainly confirms the expectation that this is an iterative process.
http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html
Statistical analyses of redundancy in current metadata processes may identify a lot of waste, but comparing well established standards with emerging standards is complex. Measuring linked open data against current processes will be difficult. A further complexity is that there is not agreement within the LOD community on significant issues: such as types of persistent identifier to be preferred; application of RDF model: there are differences of opinion concerning class/property; use of literals; use of blank nodes. This makes engagement with LOD complex, confusing and costly
Agree value of authority files as LOD.
Release of national bibliographies as LOD also has potential to generate a lot of data without excessive duplication and could provide the hooks for holdings of individual libraries.
“While the Web values global interchange between all parties, library cataloguing standards in the past have aimed to address only the exchange of data within the library community where the need to think of broader bibliographic data exchange (e.g. with publishers) is new and not universally accepted.”
This is not a new issue. Libraries and publishers have different business models, which are reflected in their development of different standards for exchange. Publishers think of publications as products; libraries are concerned with inventory of their collections and the content of publications. The granularity of open linked data may provide an opportunity for a fresh look at what could be shared for mutual benefit. However publishers, as well as librarians, may regard metadata as a commodity to be restricted.
This whole section has a rather negative tone. Libraries are aware of the need for change. Linked data is one of the directions that change might take, if the benefits can be demonstrated, but as the section makes clear the challenges are considerable.
This is partly a reflection of the [im]maturity of the technologies and the complexity of applying linked data to MARC data, which as is acknowledged elsewhere in the report, libraries are currently locked into. What is needed are models and tools to enable the conversion of MARC data. BL is looking at what would be necessary in order to release the tools we have used/created.
The British Library has recently made available a preview of the British National Bibliography Dataset http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html . The difficulties involved in this undertaking were considerable and go a long way to explaining the lack of published datasets
The BL chose to make BNB the focus of its linked data work because it is a large data set for which the BL, as the national library of the United Kingdom, is responsible and its scope can be reasonably clearly defined.
The top down model has been driven by economics: we can't afford to provide the granularity that would serve the customers best. The potential to invert this is one of the exciting possibilities offered by Linked Data.
“Links can be used to expand indexes much easier than required for todays federated searching, and can offer users a nearly unlimited number of pathways for browsing”
Not sure what this sentence means.
It would be more accurate to characterize these as potential benefits, as they are still to be demonstrated on a meaningful scale.
The analogy of “stone soup” is inappropriate. It implies that libraries have nothing of value to contribute. Whereas library metadata is valuable information that is rich in relationships. Expressing this data as linked data is not trivial as it was not designed for this purpose.
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