For the foreseeable future, then, our linked data strategy is based on experimentation, innovation, and collaboration. We will work in a hybrid environment that will include MARC records, sometimes enhanced with linked data identifiers, as well as more “native” linked data in formats like RDF and JSON. We aim to improve discovery and metadata management, increase the skills and capabilities of our library workers, investigate automated techniques for improving metadata and discovery, and collaborate with peer institutions and developers in expanding linked data resources and capabilities.
In a few years, we hope by our efforts to develop staff expertise in taking on new and larger-scale uses of library metadata, to understand what we can do with linked data and what resources we need to do it. We aspire to have an increasingly large and useful pool of linked open data to describe our resources and help them be discovered and have good working collaborative relationships with library peers and other linked data providers, as well as recognition of innovative and useful applications we have made of linked data. We do not know for sure what the overall library linked data environment will look like in a few years, but with our vision and the related activities we are engaged in and planning, we should have the capability and flexibility to respond to whatever developments come next.
