Forging Links & Breaking
Shackles
The Linked Open Data BNB
Brenda Young
Metadata Systems Manager
Linked Data
& Ex Libris

2011 IGeLU conference at University
of Haifa included a linked data
session (See:
http://igelu.org/conferences/haifa2011/archive-of-presentations )

The Linked Open Data SIWG was
created after the event “…to achieve
essential linked open data features in all
Ex Libris products where appropriate,
both from the data publishing, the data
consuming and the data integration
perspective”

Contact Lukas Koster, University of
Amsterdam Library for more
information
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British Library Metadata Services
Background
Has its roots in The British
National Bibliography Ltd prior
to the BL’s foundation
The BL supplies metadata to:

Increase visibility of holdings &
connect users to BL content, e.g.
via OCLC, COPAC etc

Participate in collaborative
national & international
cataloguing initiatives, e.g. ISDS,
SUNCAT

Support free and priced
bibliographic services
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A Changing Bibliographic Environment…
Library Sector Relevance
Declining?
“I did my PhD with only 12 visits to a
library. That was 5 years ago;
things have improved since then,
now you don’t need to use a library
at all!”
Increasing?
“The release of library data offers the
opportunity for it to be used in ways
un-thought of by the library &
information community…”
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New External Drivers
Putting Public Sector Data To Work

The web accelerated
development of a collaboration
culture & fostered expectation
that information should be freely
available

2009 saw an increasing
Government commitment to the
principle of opening up public
data for wider reuse

Public data will be released
under open licences which
enable free reuse, including
commercial reuse
New External Drivers
Linked Open Data
Government proposes a 5 star
rating for open public data:
 Available on the web (any
format), with an open licence
 As 1 star + available as
machine-readable structured
data (e.g. Excel)
 As 2 star + but nonproprietary format
 All the above + open
standards from the World Wide
Web Consortium
 All the above + link
your data to other people’s
data to provide context
So What Are We Doing?
Rising expectations & technical
developments make it essential the
BL responds
We are meeting the challenge of the new
environment by:
 Developing an open metadata
strategy
 Freely offering foundational
metadata
 Collaborating with the
community on innovative new
services (e.g. linked data) to
advance understanding
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Open Metadata Strategy
Objectives
 Adopt a multi-threaded
approach addressing the needs
of:
 Traditional libraries
 Researchers using new
metadata processing
techniques
 Linked data developers
 Remove barriers & enable
innovation without unnecessary
restrictions
 Migrate from library to crossdomain standards, developing
solutions with users
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What Have We Achieved?

Signed over 600 organisations
in 80 countries to z39.50
service

Supplied catalogue metadata
in new formats under CC0
licenses e.g. the Open Library, BBC
& Wikimedia Commons

Worked with Government, W3C
& developers on technical,
standards & licensing issues

Created a linked data version
of the British National
Bibliography
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Why Should We Be Interested In Linked Data?
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See: http://vimeo.com/36752317
Our Linked Data Journey
What to Offer?
We wanted to:
 Advance debate from theory to
practice via release of a ‘critical mass’
of data
 Show commitment by using a
large, core dataset: niche examples
are not as compelling
Why BNB?
 A reusable dataset of published
output: not a unique institutional
catalogue
 Uniform format over 60 years & 3
million records in many languages
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The BNB & Linked Data
Selecting Sites For Linking
To put BNB data in a wider
context

We blended general linked
resources:
 GeoNames
 Lexvo
 RDF Book Mashup

With key linked library
resources:
 LCSH
 VIAF
 Dewey.info
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Collaboration
BL Metadata Services
Talis
 BNB Data
 Catalogue Bridge
 Training
• Utilities and tools for
manipulating MARC21 data
 TMQ MARC Global Tools
 Analysts
• Bibliographic Data Analysis
• MARC to RDF mapping
• XSLT Conversion scripts
• RDF
• SPARQL
 Technical Infrastructure
 Data Modelling
Assistance
 Production team
• Match & merge
• Bulk processing
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The BNB & Linked Data
Remodelling
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MARC21 to RDF Conversion
Workflow
• Selection
• Selection
• Pre-processing
• Pre-processing
• Character
• Characterset
setconversion
conversion
• URI
• URIgeneration
generation
•Data
Data transformation
• Create & load triples
MARC to RDF conversion
Consists of multiple automated steps
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The BNB & Linked Data
Vocabularies used












Bibliographic Ontology
Bio: a Vocabulary for Biographical Information
British Library Terms
Dublin Core
Event Ontology
FOAF: Friend of a Friend
ISBD
Org: an Organisation Ontology
OWL
SKOS
RDF Schema
WGS84 Geo Positioning
Sample data can be downloaded from:
http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datasamples.html
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The BNB & Linked Data
Format Conversion - MARC
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The BNB & Linked Data
Format Conversion – RDF/XML
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The BNB & Linked Data
Format Conversion – Triples
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Where Did We Get To?
Multiple Access Routes
• thedatahub.org/dataset/bluk-bnb-basic
• thedatahub.org/dataset/bluk-bnb
BNB Books 1950-2012
.
3 Million Records
90 Million Unique Triples
• bnb.data.bl.uk/sparql
• bnb.data.bl.uk/describe
• bnb.data.bl.uk/search
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Achievements
 Presence & visibility
 New library data model - being
utilised by wider groups
 New opportunities for
collaboration - with public & private
sector organisations
 Confirmation that valuable data
will be used – e.g. up to 8 million
monthly transactions
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Lessons Learned
Its a New Way of Thinking…
 Give thought to data modelling &
sustainability: Data wasn’t
originally designed for this
 Everyone is learning: you may be
the best judge
 There may be tools or expertise
out there: don’t reinvent the wheel
 Conversion inevitably identifies
hidden data issues: & creates new
ones!
 Offer sample data for feedback: &
continually improve…
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Library Linked Data Wish List?
We Need More…
 Tools to link library data to
other resources
 LMS integration of linked data
options
 Navigation & visualisation
applications
 Feedback on usage
 Collaboration on shared
approaches
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Next Steps?
Linked Open BNB See:
http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html
Next steps:
 Complete staged release
 Offer monthly updates once
complete
 Documentation & further
refinement of data model
 Identify what could be
offered or linked to next?
Questions?
Images from
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