The British National Bibliography: Who Uses Our Linked Data?

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