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For most librarians this concept is fairly easy to understand. We have been creating highly structured machine-readable metadata for many years

By linking our data to shared ontologies that describe the properties and relationships of objects, we begin to allow computers not just to "understand" content, but also to derive new knowledge by "reasoning" about that content.

the term "Semantic Web" to refer to a full suite of W3C standards including RDF, SPARQL query language, and OWL web ontology language.

This article will outline some of the benefits that linked data could have for libraries, will discuss some of the non-technical obstacles that we face in moving forward, and will finally offer suggestions for practical ways in which libraries can participate in the development of the semantic web.

What benefits will libraries derive from linked data?

Having a common format for all data would be a huge boon for interoperability and the integration of all kinds of systems.

The linking hub would expose a network of tightly linked information from publishers, aggregators, book and journal vendors, subject authorities, name authorities, and other libraries.

semantic search could take us far beyond the current string-matching capabilities of search engines like Google.

What are the major obstacles for libraries?

A fundamental challenge for the development of linked data in libraries is lack of awareness.

Linked Data becomes more powerful the more of it there is.

Until there is enough linking between collections and imaginative uses of data collections there is a danger librarians will see linked data as simply another metadata standard, rather than the powerful discovery tool it will underpin.

a more practical concern is that changing the foundation of library metadata is no trivial task.

Privacy is a huge concern for many interested in linked data.

Related to privacy is trust.

Rights management poses potential problems for linked data in libraries. Libraries no longer own much of the content they provide to users; rather it is subscribed to from a variety of vendors.

What needs to happen to move libraries to the next level?

When we refer to the deep Web, we are usually talking about the following:

The content of databases.

Non-text files such as multimedia, images, software, and documents in formats such as Portable Document Format (PDF) and Microsoft Word.

Content available on sites protected by passwords or other restrictions.

Special content not presented as Web pages, such as full text articles and books

Dynamically-changing, updated content,

let's consider adding new content to our list of deep Web sources. For example:

Blog postings Comments Discussions and other communication activities on social networking sites, for example Facebook and Twitter Bookmarks and citations stored on social bookmarking sites

Tips for dealing with deep Web content

Vertical search

Use a general search engine to locate a vertical search engine.

"If libraries are to retain their role as curators of the intellectual products of society, their assets must be part of that search stream."

web entities such as DBpedia, which offers a Semantic Web mirror of Wikipedia

libraries have begun to reconceptualize metadata and publish it on the web using linked data technologies, such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) language and its extensions OWL, SKOS, and SPARQL.

library metadata is formatted and linked in RDF, then library content will surface more prominently in web search results

Recommendations from W3CThe report is still being finalized but the draft recommends that libraries:

— create web addresses using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) as globally unique, web-compatible identifiers for the resources (any kind of object or concept) they manage and the metadata elements they use

— develop library data standards that are compatible with linked data

— use their expertise in metadata management to become full partners

— foster a discussion about open data and rights.

— explore using libraries' ethos of quality control in the curation and long-term preservation of linked data datasets and vocabularies.

"As the shared understanding expands, the benefits of publishing linked data are becoming clearer,"