Transforming the Medical Subject Headings into Linked Data: Creating the Authorized Version of MeSH in RDF

Abstract

In February 2014, the National Library of Medicine formed the Linked Data Infrastructure Working Group to investigate the potential for publishing linked data, determine best practices for publishing linked data, and prioritize linked data projects, beginning with transforming the Medical Subject Headings as a linked data pilot. This article will review the pilot project to convert the Medical Subject Headings from XML to RDF. It will examine the collaborative process, the technical and organizational issues tackled, and the future of linked data at the library.

KEYWORDS:

• National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings
• linked data
• resource description framework

Notes

¹BIBFRAME, http://www.loc.gov/bibframe/

²PubChem RDF, https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/rdf/

³MeSH Classes, http://hhs.github.io/meshrdf/classes.html^; MeSH Predicates, http://hhs.github.io/meshrdf/predicates.html

⁴SPARQL Query Editor: http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/query/

⁵Download MeSH RDF, ftp://ftp.nlm.nih.gov/online/mesh/

⁶LodeStar on GitHub, https://github.com/EBISPOT/lodestar

⁷SPARQL Endpoint Base URL, http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/sparql

⁸MeSH RDF Sample Queries: http://hhs.github.io/meshrdf/sample-queries.html

¹⁰MeSH RDF GitHub Issues: https://github.com/HHS/meshrdf/issues