Linked data: What is it and why should you care?

Abstract

The semantic web and linked data technologies show great promise for organising and integrating information on the Web. As custodians of bibliographic information, libraries are ideally placed to play a leading role by providing authoritative information in this domain. The semantic web and linked data have been hyped as the solution for everything from integrating legacy data-sets and improving search through to working with big data problems. However, the vision of the semantic web is a long way from being realised. This paper explores how linked data is being used in libraries and related institutions in Australia and globally. Examples are given of linked data in practice and what makes some projects more successful than others.