unlocking doors recent initiatives in open and linked data at

National Library of Scotland

Gill Hamilton

Digital Access Manager

g.hamilton@nls.uk

about

widening access to knowledge

"we will make

digital resources accessible

through

communications media

which are effective in

promoting the use and discovery

of our collections."

widening access to knowledge

"we will improve

access to our collections

by finding

new ways

for our users to

interact with us

and

others."

social media services

Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/nlscotland

• 2,500 images

• 1,500 views per day

• 1.8 million views in total

• 10% have comments

social media services

Flickr 52,000 views

114 favorited

20 comments

"It is a Lee Enfield gun .."

"I'm doing a presentation,

may I use the image?"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlscotland/3012796098/

social media services

You 102 videos

300,000 views

186 comments

"Fab wee motor."

"My parents had one

of these"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9l01vy7y3w

Tube

social media services

Licensing, copyright and rights

• out of copyright and/or copyright owner

• to gain benefits you must give away

some or all control

• Flickr The Commons

social media services

Lessons learned....

• minimal investment for improved access

• taster of the Library's collections

• the world is full of knowledgeable people

• to gain benefits you have to give something up

• findability beyond the Library website

• open ... but not open enough

open data

is the concept that data

is made available

so others can use

and re-use it

without restrictions

of copyright

or control mechanisms

open data

if you created the metadata

then you can license it as you wish

if you create or own the resource

then you can license it as you wish

open stuff we’ve been doing

CC.0

open data

The 5 easy steps to open data

1. licensed

2. structured

3. documented

4. published

5. publicised

"Give us raw data and give it to us NOW!"

open data

http://thedatahub.org/dataset/nls-forthbridge

linked open data and us

What we don't have .... experience

skills

resources

What we do have ... great data

lots of enthusiasm

friends to help

linked open data

What we did until April 2012

stop ... start ... stop ... start ... stop ... start

• went to school to learn RDF

• tried mapping our data to DC Terms

• tried to discover URIs

• created RDF for a single resource

• wondered what to do next

• wondered if it was worth our while

linked open data

And then we spoke to our friends:

freeYourMetadata.org

"you should use Google Refine to discover URIs"

Open Knowledge Foundation

"use theDataHub.org for publishing & use CC.0"

Metadata Management Associates

"let us help you model your data because we

have a theory ..."

our 1st attempt

DOD data

local & closed global & open

X

S

L

T

LOD in DC

structure tDescription.title tKeyword.keyword tWho.who

linked open data

linked open data

linked open data

we modelled the database

http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/64.html

linked open data

DOD data

local & closed

global & open

DOD in LOD

structure tDescription.title tKeyword.keyword tWho.who

linked open data

DOD data

local & closed

global & open

DOD in LOD

R

D

F

m

a

p

MARC

schema

.org

DC

EDM

structure tDescription.title tKeyword.keyword tWho.who

linked open data graph

some things lots of strings

things and strings

and vocabularies ……

• Arts & Architecture Thesaurus

• Thesaurus for Geographic Names

• LC Subject Headings

• LC Name Authority

• Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

how to turn strings into things

thisThing

hasSubject

“Cantilever bridges”

thisThing

hasSubject

nlsURI9876

nlsURI9876

hasLabel

“Cantilever bridges”

turn nlsThings in to otherThings

thisThing hasSubject nlsURI9876

nlsURI9876 hasLabel Cantilever bridges

nlsURI9876 skosExactMatch sh85016866

nlsURI9876 skosExactMatch 624.219

thisThing hasPlace nlsURI123

nlsURI123 hasLabel Forth Bridge

nlsUR123 skosExactMatch 6695705

skos-ifying vocabularies

AAT label LCSH Dewey TGM

Cantilever bridges sh85016866 Cantilever bridges skos:exactMatch

624.219 Cantilever bridges skos:exactMatch

not found

Construction (assembling)

sh99005337 construction skos:broadMatch

624 Civil engineering skos:relatedMatch

tgm002475 construction skos:broadMatch

Railroad bridges sh85110864 Railroad bridges skos:exactMatch

385.312 The way skos:closeMatch

tgm008548 Railroad bridges skos:exactMatch

TGN label GeoNames Dewey

Forth Bridge 6695705 Forth Bridge skos:exactMatch

388.132094134 Bridges—Edinburgh skos:broadMatch

Forth, Firth of 2649175 Firth of Forth skos:exactMatch

551.483094131 Stirling etc skos:relatedMatch

SKOS mapping properties

http://www.w3.org.TR/2009/REC-skos-20090818/#mapping

finding things from strings

• By hand by Gill • By the hands of students • By Google Refine • By some clever algorithmic cleverness

where are we right now?

• PHP script that makes TTL triples • a triple store • the crudest interface in the world

ALL ON A LAPTOP • basic linking outside the NLS domain • a workshop on Wednesday

where are we right now?

where are we right now?

linked open data

• think about URIs

• think about infrastructure

• think about the vocabularies we use

• publish Forth & Haig as DOD LOD

• try to link internally

• Haig and

• WWI (Zeppelin?) maps

• and diaries

• perhaps build a service

Thank you ....

References • NLS at Flickr & YouTube

o http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlscotland/

o http://www.youtube.com/user/NLofScotland

• NLS at thedatahub o http://thedatahub.org/dataset/nls-forthbridge

• NLS DOD at The Open Metadata Registry o http://metadataregistry.org/schemaprop/list/schema_id/64.html

• Open Knowledge Foundation o http://okfn.org/

• Metadata Management Associates o http://managemetadata.com/

• freeyourmetadata.org

• thedatahub.org

Me Gill Hamilton

g.hamilton@nls.uk