The ALCTS CaMMS Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) is pleased to
announce that Kevin Ford, Network Development and MARC Standards
Office, Library of Congress, will be a guest speaker at its Monday,
January 28 meeting at 1:00-2:00 p.m. in the Westin Seattle, Elliott
Bay. The title of his presentation is "When URIs become authority:
Benefits and challenges of library Linked Data."
Abstract
The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) file has been
available as linked data since 2009 from the Library of Congress’s
(LC) Linked Data Service, ID.LOC.GOV. The publication of LCSH as
linked data (and subsequent datasets, such as the LC/NACO Name file)
has provided LC with invaluable experience implementing and using
linked data in a library environment. The knowledge gained from this
activity is especially beneficial in light of LC’s Bibliographic
Framework Initiative, which strives to re-imagine the bibliographic
ecosystem with an eye to embracing Linked Data methods and practices.
Moving toward a Linked Data approach to managing library data results
in a number of benefits, but such changes also reveal a few
significant issues that require, minimally, thoughtful solutions and
some issues that, maximally, potentially upend our thinking. For
example, in the realm of Linked Data, where the a unique identifier is
a type of authoritative collocation point, LCSH, in particular, poses
a number of problems largely because pre-coordination enables an
infinite system of subject headings. Although the benefits of moving
toward a more Linked Data approach to library data management will be
enumerated, this presentation will focus on the issues revealed by
such a move. Given the audience, but also the importance of LCSH to
libraries, special attention will be paid to LCSH, though other
well-known datasets will also be discussed. In some cases, the
challenges may be technologically addressable, but other solutions
point to policy amendments and changes to current practice and
thinking. As LC is very actively exploring a new Bibliographic
Framework that embraces Linked Data principles and methods, this is a
particularly opportune moment to be exploring issues surrounding the
representation of library authority data as Linked Data.
Biography:
Kevin Ford works in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office
(NDMSO) at the Library of Congress where he is the current project
manager for the Library of Congress's Linked Data Service,
http://id.loc.gov. Among many other authority files and value lists,
LC’s Linked Data Service publishes the LC/NACO Name Authority File; LC
Subject Headings; LC Classification; Thesaurus of Graphic Materials;
and a number of MARC lists and ISO languages. He spends a significant
amount of time modeling traditional library data in RDF for
publication at ID and consulting within the Library on other
vocabulary-related issues. Kevin also belongs to the six-member
internal LC group shepherding the Library’s Bibliographic Framework
Initiative, which will ultimately replace the MARC Communication
Formats. Kevin regularly follows Linked Data and Semantic Web
developments for LC; he participated in the W3C's Library Linked Data
Incubator Group.
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