{"id":1819,"date":"2015-12-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwneu.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2015\/12\/18\/1579-2\/"},"modified":"2015-12-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:00:00","slug":"1579-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2015\/12\/18\/1579-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Rochkind: Linked Data Caution"},"content":{"rendered":"

While preparing for our DAM and the Semantic Web webinar<\/a>, I came across a spectacular (and very long) blog post on the pros and cons of Linked Data. It is well applicable outside of its library context. I wish we had such a deep discussion of all the technology we\u2019re considering to use:<\/p>\n

Jonathan Rochkind: Linked Data Caution<\/a><\/p>\n

My favorite quotes:<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry that \u201clinked data\u201d is being approached as a goal in and of itself, and what it is meant to accomplish (and how it will or could accomplish those things) is being approached somewhat vaguely.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] You still need common vocabularies for your linked data to be inter-operable, there\u2019s no magic in linked data otherwise, linked data just says the data will be encoded in the form of triples, with the vocabularies being encoded in the form of URIs.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] The nature of linked data as being building complex information graphs based on simple triples can actually make the linked data more difficult to deal with practically. [\u2026] By being so abstract and formally simple, it can get confusing.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] My sense is that the general industry understanding is that linked data has not caught on like people thought it would in the 2007-2012 heyday, and adoption has in fact slowed and reversed.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] There\u2019s pretty widespread agreement in the industry at large that [Linked Data experiments] have not lived up to their initial expected promise or hype, and have as of yet delivered few if any significant user-facing products based upon them.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Seldom in my experience do I run into a problem where simply transitioning infrastructure to linked data would provide a solution or fundamental advancement. The barriers often have at their roots business models; or lack of common shared domain models; or lack of person power to create\/record the \u2018facts\u2019 needed in machine-readable format.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] So linked data has got good marketing and a critical mass, in an environment where decision-makers want to do something but don\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] I think those experienced with library metadata realize that good domain modelling (eg vocabulary control), and getting different actors to use the same standard formats is a challenge. I think they believe that linked data will somehow solve this challenge by being \u201copen to extension\u201d \u2014 I think this is a false promise.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] And yes, I actually agree, our library web pages should use schema.org markup to expose their information in machine-readable markup. [\u2026] But the good thing is it\u2019s not that hard to do [\u2026], and does not require rebuilding our entire infrastructure.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Be skeptical. Sure, of me too. [\u2026] Work to understand what\u2019s really going on so you can evaluate benefits and potentials yourself, and understand what it would take to get there.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Stay user centered. \u201cLinked data\u201d can\u2019t be your goal. You are using linked data to accomplish something to add value to your patrons.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Sure, make all your data (in any format, linked data or not) available on the open web, under an open license. [\u2026] Put identifiers everywhere. I don\u2019t care if they are in the form of URLs. Get your vendors to do this too.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] As we\u2019re \u201cdoing linked data\u201d, figure out ways to get improvements that effect our users positively incrementally, at each stage, iteratively.\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree with Jonathan\u2019s points, but still think moving to Linked Data is a critical first step for better interoperability \u2013 see my blog post Linked Data for better image search on the Web<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Regarding the limitations of RDF triples, see Why I prefer Topic Maps to RDF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Via Tracy Wolfe<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While preparing for our DAM and the Semantic Web webinar, I came across a spectacular (and very long) blog post on the pros and cons of Linked Data. It is well applicable outside of its library context. I wish we had such a deep discussion of all the technology we\u2019re considering to use: Jonathan Rochkind: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblog"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}