As I start my countdown to the upcoming Linked Data Planet conference, here is the first of a series of posts geared towards showcasing practical use of the burgeoning Linked Data Web.

First up, the Library of Congress, take a look at the following pages which are "Human" and machine based "User Agent" friendly:

Key point: The pages above are served up in line with Linked Data deployment and publishing tenets espoused by the Linking Open Data Community (LOD) which include (in my preferred terminology):

  • Giving "Names" to things you observe (aka Data Source Names or "DSNs" for short)
  • Use HTTP URLs in your data source naming scheme so that "access by reference" to your data sources exploits the expanse of the HTTP driven Web i.e make your DSNs "Linked Data Source Names" (LDNS)
  • Remember that Documents / Pages are compound in nature, and they aren't the only data sources we would want to name; a document's LDSN must be distinct from the LDSNs used for the subject matter concepts and/or named entities associated with a document
  • Use the RDF Data Model to express structure within your data source(s)
  • Use LDSNs when constructing statements/claims/assertions/records (triples) inside your structured data sources
  • When publishing Web Pages related to your data sources; use at least one of the following to methods to guide user agents to data sources associated with your published page; the HTML LINK tag, RDFa, GRDDL, or Content Negotiation.

The items above are features that users and decision makers should start to hone into when seeking, and evaluating, platforms that facilitate cost-effective exploitation of the Linked Data Web.