Enhanced Discovery with Linked Open Data for Library Digital Collections

ABSTRACT

Libraries have been digitizing their collections for years in order to provide users with enhanced access and improve preservation of library materials. This article studies how the linked data can be used to describe objects in the digital collections. Researchers selected a digital collection of the nineteenth-century British novels from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, and converted the metadata for 7,829 British novels from MARCXML to BIBFRAME 2.0. Their project demonstrates that the BIBFRAME 2.0 model is a feasible way to enhance the discoverability of digital collections within and beyond library communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital collections
• open access
• linked open data
• metadata crosswalks
• BIBFRAME 2.0

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Ting Zhan and Liri Fang for their participation in the project. The author would also like to thank Jefferson Fu for making the BIBFRAME 2.0 entity–relationship diagram for digital collections.