Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory

One of our greatest library resources is people. Most libraries have staff directory information published on the web, yet most of this data is trapped in local silos, PDFs, or unstructured HTML markup. With this in mind, the library informatics team at Montana State University (MSU) Library s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jason A. Clark, Scott W. H. Young
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Code4Lib 2017-04-01
Series:Code4Lib Journal
Online Access:http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/12320
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author Jason A. Clark
Scott W. H. Young
author_facet Jason A. Clark
Scott W. H. Young
author_sort Jason A. Clark
collection DOAJ
description One of our greatest library resources is people. Most libraries have staff directory information published on the web, yet most of this data is trapped in local silos, PDFs, or unstructured HTML markup. With this in mind, the library informatics team at Montana State University (MSU) Library set a goal of remaking our people pages by connecting the local staff database to the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud. In pursuing linked data integration for library staff profiles, we have realized two primary use cases: improving the search engine optimization (SEO) for people pages and creating network graph visualizations. In this article, we will focus on the code to build this library graph model as well as the linked data workflows and ontology expressions developed to support it. Existing linked data work has largely centered around machine-actionable data and improvements for bots or intelligent software agents. Our work demonstrates that connecting your staff directory to the LOD cloud can reveal relationships among people in dynamic ways, thereby raising staff visibility and bringing an increased level of understanding and collaboration potential for one of our primary assets: the people that make the library happen.
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spelling doaj.art-18ab185f659d4d5c8cac59bd607304d02022-12-22T00:28:21ZengCode4LibCode4Lib Journal1940-57582017-04-013612320Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff DirectoryJason A. ClarkScott W. H. YoungOne of our greatest library resources is people. Most libraries have staff directory information published on the web, yet most of this data is trapped in local silos, PDFs, or unstructured HTML markup. With this in mind, the library informatics team at Montana State University (MSU) Library set a goal of remaking our people pages by connecting the local staff database to the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud. In pursuing linked data integration for library staff profiles, we have realized two primary use cases: improving the search engine optimization (SEO) for people pages and creating network graph visualizations. In this article, we will focus on the code to build this library graph model as well as the linked data workflows and ontology expressions developed to support it. Existing linked data work has largely centered around machine-actionable data and improvements for bots or intelligent software agents. Our work demonstrates that connecting your staff directory to the LOD cloud can reveal relationships among people in dynamic ways, thereby raising staff visibility and bringing an increased level of understanding and collaboration potential for one of our primary assets: the people that make the library happen.http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/12320
spellingShingle Jason A. Clark
Scott W. H. Young
Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory
Code4Lib Journal
title Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory
title_full Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory
title_fullStr Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory
title_full_unstemmed Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory
title_short Linked Data is People: Building a Knowledge Graph to Reshape the Library Staff Directory
title_sort linked data is people building a knowledge graph to reshape the library staff directory
url http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/12320
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