Global library cooperative OCLC, US, has announced that it is taking the first step toward adding linked data to WorldCat by appending Schema.org descriptive mark-up to WorldCat.org pages. WorldCat.org now offers the largest set of linked bibliographic data on the Web. With the addition of Schema.org mark-up to all book, journal and other bibliographic resources in WorldCat.org, the entire publicly available version of WorldCat is now available for use by intelligent Web crawlers, like Google and Bing, that can make use of this metadata in search indexes and other applications.
Commercial developers that rely on Web-based services have been exploring ways to exploit the potential of linked data. The Schema.org initiative - launched in 2011 by Google, Bing and Yahoo! and later joined by Yandex - provides a core vocabulary for markup that helps search engines and other Web crawlers more directly make use of the underlying data that powers many online services.
OCLC is working with the Schema.org community to develop and add a set of vocabulary extensions to WorldCat data. Schema.org and library specific extensions will provide a valuable two-way bridge between the library community and the consumer Web. Schema.org is working with a number of other industries to provide similar sets of extensions for other specific use cases.
The opportunities that linked data provide to the global library community are in line with OCLC's core strategy of collaboratively building Webscale with libraries. Adding linked data to WorldCat records makes those records more useful - especially to search engines, developers and services on the wider Web, beyond the library community. This will make it easier for search engines to connect non-library organisations to library data.
WorldCat has been built by thousands of member libraries over the last four decades and claims to be the world's largest online registry of library collections. OCLC will continue to engage the library community and the larger developer communities to research, discuss and inform the progression of linked data projects on behalf of member libraries.
OCLC sees Schema.org as a timely and significant development toward linked data technology adoption that will provide recognisable benefits for libraries. Further demonstrating its role in providing linked library data, OCLC recently announced that the full set of DDC 23 - more than 23,000 assignable numbers and captions in English - is now available as linked data.
