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Linked Data and the LOCAH project

The popularity of the Semantic Web has been growing in recent years. Introduced by Tim Berners-Lee in 2001, the vision of the Semantic Web is of a web of data, negotiable by machines. One of the main components of this is Linked Data, which describes things and the relationships between them using controlled ontologies and HTTP URIs. This article provides a clear explanation of the fundamentals of Linked Data, and discusses how these are being used by the JISC-funded LOCAH project, which aims to make bibliographic and archival data from the Copac and the Archives Hub available as open Linked Data. Providing data as Linked Data creates links with other data sources, and allows the development of new channels into the data. Bibliographic and archive data is especially rich in the kind of data that can enhance existing knowledge and conceptions. The author also looks at the power and the potential of Linked Data, the growth in its application, and concludes with some of the ways businesses (BBC, Vodaphone, and the oil and gas industries) are beginning to use Linked Data.