The British National Bibliography: Who Uses Our Linked Data?

Abstract

The British Library began publishing a Linked Open Data (LOD) version of the British National Bibliography (BNB) in 2011 as part of its open metadata strategy. The BNB SPARQL endpoint has continued to evolve since that point with: new content, links and regular monthly updates. While organisational benefits have been gained through staff familiarisation with, Linked Data principles, data modelling and format translation, it has been challenging to identify exactly how the Linked Data has been used and by whom? While system logs capture basic information and anecdotal usage may be reported via social media, conference events or help desk feedback, the lack of independent tools similar to web analytics has made it difficult to gain understanding of how the service is used in order to justify and target investment. This paper describes a project between the British Library and Fujitsu Ireland that examined the insights that could be gained from the development and application of Linked Data analytics. The results indicate Linked Data analytics offers publishers benefits in several areas including organisational, service management, technical, and user support. Most importantly at a time of funding restrictions, application of Linked Data analytics offers publishers the ability to accurately assess the impact of their data in order to more effectively target their scarce resources. In doing so they can begin to manage LOD services as efficiently as their web equivalents and continue the realisation of Linked Data’s potential for the community.