Linked Data Consumption for the Rare Materials Librarian: An Introduction and How-To

Abstract

The English Short Title Catalog (ESTC) and the RBMS Controlled Vocabularies for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloging (RBMS-CV) are now published as Linked Data. What does this mean? And how can Linked Data formats empower the RBMS community to improve workflows, bolster discovery, and enhance research? This educational seminar will provide an overview of each publication and the benefits of its new data format, followed by practical (and accessible!) instruction for working with these publications as Linked Data. Examples will include cataloger tasks (e.g., linking to an external authority resource, ingesting contextual information), curatorial tasks (e.g., uncovering related material and collections, building connections and stories via raw data), and user tasks (e.g., discovering special collections material in search engines).