An Evaluation Approach for Linked Data Public Access Catalogs

With the application and development of linked data (LD), libraries have begun to offer LD-based information services for users. This study uses a checklist-based evaluation derived from a literature review as a research tool to address the state-of-the-art development and issues related to LD public access catalogs (PACs). Jane Austen and her works as well as derived works and persons were selected as testing instances for LD PAC at four libraries as follows: Biblioteca Nacional de España, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Linked Data Service of Library of Congress and SHARE Virtual Discovery Environment. Eleven functions were included in the evaluation checklist. The degree of provision of each function by each LD public access catalog was found to be varied in terms of link-based resource discovery, linkage to external LD resources and types, self-descriptive and dynamic content, representation and query of LD relationship, aggregated knowledge contexts, information graph, serendipity, toURIsm navigation, facet based navigation, reconfiguration and repackage, keyword recommendation and openness of data. A comparison between resource discovery system and LD PACs is also presented.