Providing LOD-based functionality in digital libraries

Abstract

Libraries and other memory institutions have wasted no time in realizing that linked data technologies provide the necessary means to solve important interoperability issues that have been plaguing the community for decades. Despite the wide availability of cultural heritage information as linked open data - LOD, there seems to be a lack of LOD services that are targeted towards the end-user. In this paper, a LOD-powered, subject-based browsing service is proposed, capable of integrating resources from diverse repositories. More specifically, the proposed work describes a service that is built on top of a DSpace-based digital library of thesis and dissertations that not only exposes its topical information (i.e. subject headings) to the wider linked data community, but also manages to provide its end-users with additional relevant resources originating from a remote repository (i.e. New York Times - NYT articles database). The proposed service has been accordingly evaluated through a user survey. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.