(19 September 2014) OCLC Research conducted an international linked data survey for implementers between 7 July and 15 August 2014 to learn details of specific projects or services that format metadata as linked data and/or make subsequent uses of it. This was an exploratory survey prompted by the OCLC Research Library Partners Metadata Managers Focus Group, who are excited by the potential of linked data applications to make new, valuable uses of existing metadata and wanted to learn from the experiences in the libraries/archives/museums community what is possible to do and how to go about it.
The survey received 122 responses from users in 15 countries and included descriptions of 76 linked data projects or services. 25 of the described projects consume linked data; 4 publish linked data; 47 both consume and publish linked data.
Key results from the survey include:
- The two main reasons why survey respondents implement linked data projects and services are to enhance their own data by consuming linked data from other sources and provide a richer experience for users.
- The four linked data resources that are consumed the most by respondents are id.loc.gov, DBpedia, GeoNames and VIAF.
- The two main reasons why the linked data projects/services publish linked data are to expose their data to a larger audience on the Web and to demonstrate what could be done with their datasets as linked data.
- The four largest linked data datasets (with more than 1 billion triples) reported are WorldCat.org, WorldCat.org Works, Europeana and The European Library.
- Much of the advice offered by implementers centered around preparations and project management.
For more detailed explanations of the results, see OCLC Research Program Officer Karen Smith-Yoshimura’s Linked Data Survey Results series of HangingTogether blog posts. The links are here.