Linked Data Based Library Web Services For Economics

Abstract

A large number of library metadata resources have become available as Linked Open Data (LOD) in the last two years. We see, however, not much re-use of this data in library applications. The paper discusses hurdles for a broader adoption of such resources. It suggests building lightweight REST-oriented web service interfaces which fit well in the Web 2.0/Mash-up mindset of the majority of application programmers. Exemplifying this approach in the field of economics, we built and published Web Services for Economics (http://zbw.eu/beta/econ-ws) based on a thesaurus, a classification, a personal and a corporate names authority file, all on economics, and interdisciplinary mappings to other terminological resources. Furthermore, we demonstrate how these services are integrated in real-life library applications and how authoring and publishing platforms can be enhanced to make use of them.