Linked data has been the subject of discussion for many years in the world of libraries.While some libraries are already going from production to production, this technology is led to develop at the global level.The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2020 shows that ontologies and graphs should become commonplace within two to five years.Linked data quickly turns to promote the discovery of library resources on the web.Extract from the OCLC Book "Libraries: towards overpowered collections": Download the entire White Paper

How to detach yourself from the data formats of traditional libraries?

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While we take advantage of the potential of a world where any resource held by an organization can be found by typing only a few words on a keyboard, data formats specific to the library sector will be brought to disappear.The linked data that will replace them offer the possibility of connecting existing traditional authority files by placing them in a wider context.

Updating cultural content, constantly evolving, requires the participation of libraries around the world.To break national, cultural, economic and linguistic barriers, linked data must be accessible to all libraries.The New Zealand National Library, for example, has made concerted efforts to make its users available to its users on the Maori people on Worldcat.

Extending this work requires new structures to give metadata and authority files a dimension going beyond simple bibliographic information.

But what is the added value of WorldCat?

Find the right partner of libraries to take advantage of related data

To benefit from the advantages offered by linked data, libraries must be associated with a partner with metadata expertise and experience in large -scale accessibility to information resources.

With 50 years of experience in the aggregation and management of metadata within WorldCat, OCLC is ideally positioned to provide a sustainable ecosystem to the global library community.OCLC works on the web scale to support activities that libraries would be unable to carry out alone, or at least that they would not be able to carry out so effectively.

With WorldCat.ORG, OCLC provides the largest database to the world of library resources, accessible for free

OCLC devotes the grant granted to it by the Mellon Foundation to the development of a shared entities management infrastructure based on WorldCat, its cooperative model and its community metadata flows.

Once over, the infrastructure will be managed jointly by community members and OCLC.We expect libraries to play an active role in feeding and updating the descriptive part over time, in order to improve the visibility of their collections, like what they are currently doingWhen they provide bibliographic data in WorldCat.

The transition to this linked data infrastructure is a logical evolution for OCLC.This principle of cooperative work to describe the content of libraries is a principle that will last in the era of linked data.The construction of the infrastructure itself is also the fruit of a collaborative effort, and OCLC works in close collaboration with a research advisory group, university, public and national libraries.

What advantages can libraries draw linked authority data?

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Favoring a global approach, not only national, will make it possible to establish links between languages, countries and cultures.This is what we see with the file of virtual international authority (Virtual International Authority File - Viaf®), which connects the orthographic variants of the authors and other creators between countries and languages.

WorldCat alone, as a central bibliographic information repository, cannot establish all the connections necessary to draw up an exhaustive table of a given entity.But based on an infrastructure of related data, WorldCat will be able to serve as a major information platform establishing connections with many other sets of data.

How to describe the cultural content more respectful and inclusive?

Linked data make it possible to reconstitute lost cultures.They can also attack implicit and explicit racial biases identified within our existing metadata frames, abandoning the exclusive profiling of everything that is Western or centered on Europe.The structure will serve as a cornerstone for a truly inclusive world vision.

It is essential to ensure the participation of libraries around the world, including those that do not have the resources necessary to exploit new generation metadata.For the libraries that need it, WorldCat will convert the Marc format into the vocabulary of the related (and vice versa) data as necessary as necessary.OCLC also undertakes to maintain and improve WorldCat for the benefit of all libraries in the world.

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