OCLC recently released a 15 minute video on YouTube that introduces the concepts and technologies behind linked data and how it can benefit libraries and their users. It’s a great video and uses the running example of Raven (as a thing and as a poem) to exemplify how linked data can disambiguate concepts and help improve search results.

Have you recently noticed that when you search for a well-known person on Google that there is a box on the right side of the page highlighting the person? Give it a shot–search for “Jon Stewart” in Google and on the right-hand side will be a box that says, “See results about Jon Stewart” and includes his photo. Click the Jon Stewart link and you will see bio information scraped from Wikipedia, a photo from askactor.com and a listing of some of his books.

How is this done? By using linked data, of course. In 2011 the big three search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!) created Schema.org to create, support, and maintain common schemas that will be recognized by major search providers.

OCLC has worked with the Schema.org folks to make sure the library metadata is added to the Schema.org ontology. In addition, OCLC has added linked data to OCLC WorldCat records (see the recent MDG post). The OCLC linked data for libraries YouTube video elaborates on why linked data is relevant to libraries.
It’s a great YouTube video and I highly recommend it [thumbs up]!