Linked Data for Cultural Heritage

With its roots in computer science, linked data is unfamiliar territory for many library catalogers. But since the origins of MARC nearly 50 years ago, the value of machine-readable library records has only grown. Today linked data is essential for sharing library collections on the open web, especially the digital cultural heritage in the collections of libraries, archives, and museums. In this book, the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) gathers a stellar list of contributors to help readers understand linked data concepts by examining practice and projects based in familiar concepts like authority control. Topped by an insider's perspective on OCLC's experiments with Schema.org and the Library of Congress's BIBFRAME project, the book addresses such topics as: a simplified description of linked data, summing up its promises and challenges; controlled vocabularies for the web; broadening use of library-curated vocabularies; how the complexity of AV models reveals the limitations of retrospective conversion; BIBFRAME's triplestore data model; ways libraries are helping science researchers share their data, with descriptions of projects underway at major institutions; balancing the nuance within an element set with the sameness needed for sharing; and the influence of projects such as Europeana and Digital Public Library of America. This survey of the cultural heritage landscape will be a key resource for catalogers and those in the metadata community.