While the possible benefits for NBAs wishing to offer linked open data services are significant, the challenges should not be underestimated. These include:

  • The financial impact on revenue from more traditional metadata services
  • Complex copyright & licensing frameworks impacting on the ability to offer consistent
  • Confusion arising from differing interpretations of  the terms ‘free’ & ‘open’ by user communities
  • The requirement to remodel traditional library data in a new linked data environment
  • The need for sustainability and persistence of linked data resources
  • The steep learning curve for library staff used to more traditional formats
  • Choice of sites to link data to
  • Creation of persistent identifiers for data elements

Fortunately the use of linked data in libraries is beginning to become more common and evolve from an experimental to a standard operational activity and an increasing amount of libraries are gaining expertise in the area. The IFLA 2014 satellite meeting included a range of presentations on different aspects of linked data activity from library organisations.