Library of Congress Linked Data Service explained

The LC Linked Data Service is an initiative of the Library of Congress that publishes authority data as linked data.It is commonly referred to by its URI: id.loc.gov.

The first offering of the LC Linked Data Service was the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) dataset, which was released in April 2009.

Datasets

• Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
• Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF)
• Library of Congress Classification—because LC Classification uses a different MARC format than LC Authorities, mapping LC Classification to MADS/RDF was more difficult than mapping LCSH or LCNAF.
• Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
• Various MARC codes
• Various preservation vocabularies

The Library of Congress offers users the opportunity to create their own datasets with library application profiles (APIs). Create your own datasets

Formats

The service presents data in MADS/RDF and SKOS where appropriate, but also uses its own ontology to describe classification resources and relationships more accurately. All records are available individually via content negotiation as XHTML/RDFa, RDF/XML, N-Triples, and JSON.

Each vocabulary is also available to download in its entirety. Id.loc.gov does not currently provide a SPARQL endpoint.

Uses

All of LCSH are crosslinked with (French: Répertoire d’autorité-matière encyclopédique et alphabétique unifié), an authority file from the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Technical aspects

The id.loc.gov site initially used a fairly lightweight Python program to serve linked data.

See also

• Authority control
• BIBFRAME
• Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN)
• German: [[Personennamendatei]] (PND)
• Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)

References

^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}

External links

• • Linked Data Service

Notes and References

1. Ford . Kevin . Library of Congress Classification as linked data . JLIS.it . January 2013 . 4 . 1 . 10.4403/jlis.it-5465 . 2014-06-01.
2. Ford . Kevin . ID.LOC.GOV, 1 ½ Years: Review, Changes, Future Plans, MADS/RDF . Digital Library Federation Fall Forum . 2014-06-01 . Palo Alto, California, US . 2010-11-02.
3. LCSH, SKOS and Linked Data . Summers . Ed . Isaac . Antoine . Redding . Clay . Krech . Dan . Schreiber . Guus . Summers . Ed . Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web . 20 . 0805.2855 . 35–49 . May 2013 . 2008 . 10.1016/j.websem.2013.05.001. 2266021 . (NB. This appears to be two sources mixed up.)
4. Web site: About . LC Linked Data Service . . 2014-06-01.
5. Guenther . Rebecca . LC's Authorities and Vocabularies Web Service: experimenting with Linked Data . American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference . 1 June 2014 . San Diego, California, US . 2011-01-09.
6. Web site: Technical Center . LC Linked Data Service . 2014-06-01.