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Linked Data Links - Contents

Linked Data Basic Resources
Bibliographic Metadata Elements
Some Useful Ontologies
Some Useful Vocabularies
Tutorials
Databases and catalogs
Software and tools
Linked Data Organizations and Activities
Linked Data Examples
Background Reading

Linked Data Basic Resources

Bibliographic Metadata Elements

There are a number of existing element sets for bibliographic data. Some come out of library cataloging concepts, others have been developed from an academic research perspective and favor print materials, primarily journal articles.

Some Useful Ontologies

Some Useful Vocabularies

Note: these are controlled lists of terms that can be used as values ("objects") in linked data. The lists included here only ones with http URIs for each term. There are many standard lists of terms that have not yet been expressed as URIs, such as many ISO lists.

Tutorials

Databases and Catalogs using Linked Data

These are databases and catalogs that are searchable through a user interface whose data is stored as linked data. The amount of linking varies, and may change over time as these systems and the available resources grow.

Data Sets

These are bulk data sets that have been made available for download. They can be used for experimentation, or to feed into other data projects.

Software & Tools

New tools are being develop constantly. This is only a small sample. Visit the W3C tools page or Berman's Sweet Tools to see more.

Linked Data Organizations and Activities

Linked Data Examples

Sample Data

RDA use cases from DCMI/RDA Working Group pages. (Click on links like "Scenario/1" by each case's heading.)

Open Library

Author page
Author in RDF

Work page
Work in RDF

Edition (Manifestation) page
Edition in RDF

Open Research Online

Article page
Article metadata in RDF

VIAF

Name authority page
Name authority in RDF

DBPedia

Page for Herman Melville
Page for Moby Dick

Freebase

Jonathan Franzen in RDF
Book: Freedom in RDF

Background Reading

Particularly for librarians

More technical readings

Linked Data: Evolving the Web in a Global Data Space
- Free online in HTML. "We begin by outlining the basic principles of Linked Data, including coverage of relevant aspects of Web architecture. The remainder of the text is based around two main themes - the publication and consumption of Linked Data. Drawing on a practical Linked Data scenario, we provide guidance and best practices on: architectural approaches to publishing Linked Data; choosing URIs and vocabularies to identify and describe resources; deciding what data to return in a description of a resource on the Web; methods and frameworks for automated linking of data sets; and testing and debugging approaches for Linked Data deployments. "
Semantic web for the working ontologist by Dean Allemang, 2008, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers/Elsevier
If you are comfortable with general metadata concepts and perhaps some database management technologies, then this is a good first book on Semantic Web metadata concepts. It's not really for beginners, but I can't find anything that is truly for beginners. So expect to struggle a bit, but the information here is solid.
Semantic Web Programming, by John Hebeler, et al. Indianapolis, Ind., Wiley, 2009. ISBN:9780470418017
Although this is in the end a book for programmers, the first half talks about Semantic Web concepts and standards without requiring any programming expertise. So you can learn about RDF, OWL, and see examples of uses. If you program, then the book also gets you started with some of the current Semantic Web tools: Protege, Jena and Pellet.
Semantic Web for Dummies, by Jeffrey T. Pollock. Wiley, 2009
In this case, the "dummy" is a fairly seasoned programmer with good skills in relational databases and object-oriented programming. So if your tech skills are good, this book will give you a lot of practical information, relating it to things you already know. It also is aimed at the business world, where terms like "enterprise" are frequently used. Although that might be a bit strange for library folks, Pollock addresses issues relating to scalability, search optimization, and the types of technical skills that are essential in this new environment.
A Semantic Web primer by G. Antoniou 2008, MIT Press
Creating the semantic Web with RDF, by Johan Hjelm 2001, Wiley
The Semantic Web, by Michael C Daconta 2003, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.