Applications of Linked Data Technologies in Libraries: Technical and Ethical
Considerations
Qurat Ul Ain Saleem
University of Central Punjab
Lahore, Pakistan
Quratulainsaleem266@gmail.com
Nadia Butt
Riphah International University
Lahore, Pakistan
Abstract—this study aims to identify and report the challenges
and issues/ barriers faced by libraries to implement Linked
Data (LD) technologies. It also highlights some misconception
regarding linked open data among library community. It is a
qualitative study based on literature review. Literature was
searched using scholarly databases and Google scholar by
using keyword searching. Articles were selected on the basis of
relevancy with the topic. The findings identified technical
issues such as ontologies development; use of multiple
standards and languages along with legal issue including data
protection and privacy of data. Some conceptual issues such as
lack of awareness, scarce resources to train the practitioners,
and issues of publishing data on web were also highlighted.
The study is limited to limited to the challenges and issues
along with misconceptions about linked data highlighted in
literature. It didn’t gather primary data for empirical
evidences. This study will be helpful for library practitioners
and policy makers to manage in forecasting the potential issues
while adopting linked data technologies. Identification of issues
before starting any project helps the stakeholders to work on
the solutions to lesser the problems while working.
Keywords- Issues - Linked Data; Challenges - Linked Data;
Linked Data Adoption – Libraries; Misconception - Linked Data.
I. INTRODUCTION
Linked Data (LD) is a set of best practices required for
publishing and connecting structured data on the web that is
usable by both machine and human being. LD is an
expression used to expose, share and connect data on the
web through the help of URIs (Uniform Resource
Identifiers) [8]. Multiple terms are used for LD including,
linked open data and open data. Open data is defined as
“non-privacy-restricted and no confidential data which is
produced with public money and is made available without
any restrictions on its usage or distribution” [13]. For linking
data, the data must be open and structured so that it may link
to other datasets for providing consumers access to a wealth
of data.
Linked data is part of the semantic web, and is built upon
semantic web technologies. For publishing data on web, in a
Nadyabutt@gmail.com
Nosheen Fatima Warriach
Department of Information Management
University of the Punjab, Pakistan
Lahore, Pakistan
Nosheen.im@pu.edu.pk
way that it becomes part of a single data space, Reference [3]
outlined a set of rules for publishing data. The rules are;
1. “Use URIs as names for things.
2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those
names.
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful
information, using the standards
(RDF, SPARQL).
4. Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover
more things”.
In 2007, the W3C Linking Open Data (LOD) project
began publishing existing datasets under open licenses based
on linked data principles. Again, Berners-Lee, the initiator of
linked data, gave a five-star deployment scheme for
publishing data. According to Berners-Lee, five-star
deployment scheme includes;
1. “Data is available on the Web,
2. Available as machine-readable structured data,
3. Available in a non-proprietary format,
4. Published using open standards from the W3C,
5. All of the above and links to other Linked Open
Data”
Linking data on the web has its own benefits and
challenges and it is not as cool as it seems. The purpose of
this study is to review the published literature to identify the
challenges, issues and barriers of linked data. In Pakistan, it
is an emerging concept, this study will help those librarians
and information professionals who are planning to link their
datasets on the web with a public accessibility.
 II. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
A major objective of this paper is to highlight the issues
related to the adoption of linked data technologies.
Following objectives guided the study:
• To identify the ethical and technical challenges for the
application of LD technology in libraries
• To throw light on the misconceptions of LD technologies
among library community
III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Following research questions guided the study in the context
of libraries;
A. RQ1: what are the misconceptions related to LD
technologies?
B. RQ2: what are the technical issues related to LD
technologies?
C. RQ3: what are the ethical and legal issues involved in
adopting linked data technologies?
D. RQ4: what are the other issues highlighted in literature
other than technical and legal?
IV. METHODOLOGY
This paper is based on published literature about
linked data. Different databases and scholarly journals
were consulted to find articles and studies for this
purpose. Available databases such as LISTA, Jstor, and
Science Direct along with Google and Google scholar
were searched. Search terms for literature includes,
linked data, issues to linked data, ethical considerations
for linked data, linked data: associated issues, challenges
of linked data, and barriers to linked data. Articles from
2009 to 2017 were selecetd after a carefull review of
abstract. Twenty five articles were seleceted and
discussed among all the three reserachers to derive the
major themes.
V. ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE
Linked data has potential benefits for libraries. Reference
[18] advocates LD adoption in libraries and emphasize that
libraries should discuss its potential with different
stakeholders. They encouraged librarians to take a
leadership role in accelerating linked data initiatives. The
barriers that libraries could face while adopting LD
technologies are highlighted in this study along with certain
misconception about it.
A. MISCONCEPTION OF LINKED DATA
There are certain misconception about LD technologies in
library community. They perceive that LD has no value in
itself; it only becomes valuable when serve the public. This
study will highlight few of the misconceptions regarding
linked open data.
Reference [13] identified five myths of linked data: “(a) the
publicizing of data will automatically yield benefits; (b) all
information should be unrestrictedly publicized; (c) it is
matter of simply publishing public data; (d) each constitute
can make use of open data; (e) open data will result in open
government”.
Few other misconception regarding semantic web
technologies includes that Semantic Web applications
(should) always reuse existing ontologies. If existing
ontologies are fulfilling the purpose exhaustively, there is no
need to develop new one. But if the need arose then
developing a new ontology is necessary.
Ontology design require agreement from all stakeholder is
another misconception. There are basically two approaches
for designing an ontology; bottom up and top down
approach. Top down is not usually practical but appealing.
As though everybody concurs from the starting point, at that
point everybody will have the capacity to reuse similar
ideas, and the subsequent data and software will function
together. Semantic Web ontology standards, (for example,
RDFs and OWL) are intended to use in a bottom-up
approach.
Data access is provided through federated search is almost
fair to understand as semantic web integrate heterogonous
data across the web to provide access. However, this is not
seem true as semantic web has option to choose the data
technology and integration paradigm.
B. ISSUES TO LINKED DATA
There are many problems related to the adoption of LD
technologies, including economic, political, ethical, legal,
technological and institutional. The challenges does not stop
here, there are some barriers with relation to the information
quality for linking data on the web and as well as regarding
the use of linked data from a user point of view. Literature
also clustered benefits of linked data in three categories; 1)
political and social; 2) economic; and 3) operational and
technical benefits [13].
This study will highlight legal, technical, conceptual, quality
issues and some other issues related to linking data on the
web through published literature. The barriers of LD
adoption are arranged according to the research questions.
Technical issues:
Linking data on the web is not an easy task. To make data
machine-readable and interpretable includes a lot of
technology, experience, standards, vocabularies, and
languages. Reference [1] identified the issues and
challenges of LD technologies with respect to libraries.
Most of the libraries in the world are using MARC standard
for assigning metadata to the information items. MARC has
limitations, as LD does not support it. The replacement of
MARC standards in libraries to linked data on the web also
has issues. Data conversion from MARC to another
standard metadata format, and especially when there are
large datasets is a key fact [7].
Data Modelling and Linking:
Reference [25] identified two issues of data modelling and
data linking. Data modeling is an entity relationship
modeling, which describe how terms relate to each other.
They studied the application of linked data technologies to
social sciences and identified that the exciting terminologies
and vocabularies are not enough as these are not describing
and expressing the terms or relationship to the fullest. So, as
an extension of complete vocabulary for social sciences, a
separate vocabulary is developed. This means, that for every
field of subject a separate vocabulary will be needed to
develop so to describe the terms. The second issue
highlighted was data linking that further identified two
issues entity disambiguation and specification of links and
their semantics.
Integration of sensor data is an interesting challenge as
sensor data is highly dynamic and temporal most of the time
[14]. LD has to face challenges in the publishing and
consumption of data. Literature established that there is still
much data in right format that is not linked on web,
probably due to the availability of data at hard to reach
places [20] and this is very true in the context of libraries
and cultural heritage institutions. Reference [11] opined
about the infrastructure requirement for setting up LD
services in library and archives. They emphasized the
importance of stable URIs.
Semantic Inconsistency:
Reference [10] observed, “Library community and Semantic
Web community have different vocabularies for the same
metadata causing a complication in the mapping process”.
Even different libraries and scientific databases have been
using different vocabularies. Reference [23] pointed out the
issue of semantic inconsistency. During the application of
LD to scientific databases, they identified the difference of
vocabularies due to the lack of standards. Every institution
work with their own standards, and when they linked data
together there are problem such as homonyms, synonyms,
and heterogeneity of data. Reference [22] described the
issue of ontology matching in LD. Reference [20] also
identified the issue to ontology alignment, when there are
multiple ways to structure a data, there will be heterogeneity
in datasets. In addition, LD has no recommended standard to
control data access and to authenticate users. They further
recommended, “The application server must implement
unification authentication and access control in the process
of data access, which limits the interoperability between
different systems”. Data selection and Ontology selection
are also two important considerations [11]. Development of
ontologies, entities (classes), elements (properties) and
values (instances) are significant for making a conceptual
shift [1]. Reference [6] bring out an important issue of
semantic publishing in their study. Reference [15]
highlighted the issues of relationship semantic in web of
linked data. Too much specificity of any particular schema
will not be useful for others especially outside the scholarly
community and it will be soloing scholarly resources away
from more general applications. In
Interoperability:
Reference [20] experienced the issue of low interoperability.
Application of a standard mechanism to access the
databases, classes, and attributes should consider.
Publishing of scientific data with LD technologies is
challenging due to its dynamic and ever increasing attributes
with static nature of RDF is important to consider as the
change of RDF may crash the application.
LD environment, accurate and meaningful representation of
any work play a vital role implanting LD successfully.
Reference [16] reported that majority of searches completed
online relate to aboutness. It is also reported in literature that
current vocabularies are not exhaustive and cannot benefit
the library community at a wider scale. Terminological
differences between libraries and web-based standards are
not easy to understand for library community. Moreover,
there is a lack of tools and applications in libraries for
adopting LD technologies.
Legal issues:
Legal issues include the debate related to data protection,
copyright, and privacy of data. Reference [13] identified
legal issues related to linked data on the web. Further, these
issues are elaborated as;
• “Privacy violation and Security
• No license for using data
• Limited conditions for using data
• Dispute and litigations
• Prior written permission required to gain access to
and reproduce data
• Reuse of contracts/agreements”
Licensing and Copyright Issues:
In terms of legal matters, two important issues highlighted
in [11] are publication rights and licensing of linked data.
Gonzales [7] pointed out legality and copyright of data to
share on web. In [12] discussed the issue of licensing and
waving the rights of publically available data. Absence of a
copyright statement doesn’t mean that data can be reused.
They recommend that Linked Data published on the web
should include explicit license or waiver statements.
Licenses and waivers are two interrelated concepts.
Licenses grant others rights to reuse something and
generally attach conditions to this reuse, while waivers
enable the owner to explicitly waive their rights to
something. Reference [24] highlighted the complex factor of
copyright in his article which was based on presentations
given at the Talis Open Day at the British Library.
Data protection:
Reference [19] narrated personal information protection as
an important concern of linked data technologies. Before
adopting linked data technologies, a global conversation on
privacy and data reuse should be defined so to deal with the
issue of copyright as well.
Ethical Issues:
Reference [14] explored the issue of privacy of people and
discussed the solutions for protecting the privacy of people.
If sensitive data related to people will be made available on
the internet through linked data technologies that is very
dangerous. Reference [5] studied the personal privacy and
web of linked data and identified the issues related to
privacy of personals. The case study investigated the risks
and uncertainties associated with user privacy in linked data
environments. Further, they advised educating relevant
stakeholders, including software developers, users, and
ethics committees, about the potential risks to personal
privacy.
Reference [10] described that the difference of ownership
rights that are varying from country to country is a complex
problem. Reference [19] narrated personal information
protection as an important concern of linked data
technologies. Before adopting linked data technologies, a
global conversation on privacy and data reuse should be
defined so to deal with the issue of copyright as well.
Other issues:
Reference [14] described the issue of data quality as there
are many data available on the internet, how to assure the
truthfulness of data, is a question. Reference [2] identified
the quality issues related to data. The quality assessment of
data allows users or applications to understand whether data
is appropriate for the task or not. Mainly, linked data suffers
from quality problems like inaccuracy, out datedness,
incompleteness, and inconsistency, due to which full
exploitation of data remain fails. Reference [4] mentioned
in the study that anyone could published data to the web of
linked data, so the data quality issues are there. To maintain
the quality of data it is important to ensure the accuracy,
completeness, consistency, readability and accessibility of
data published on the web.
Another issues highlighted in Reference [11] is general lack
of experience reports for establishing linked services. Best
practices are available that can be used as a rule. Reference
[7] also ascertain that teaching a new bibliographic system
to the practitioners is not easy, it will require a great deal of
time and effort and as well as resources. Lack of knowledge,
experience and success stories was highlighted as a
challenge of linked data for libraries [9]. Reference [7]
discerned that knowledge and awareness is an issue as well
as the institutional willingness in sharing data is very
important.
Getting feedback from the users, can be used for multiple
purposes, is also a challenge as pointed out by reference
[21]. Reference [15] demonstrated the role of stakeholders
in linking data on the web. The role of resource creator and
curator and other stakeholder are needed to define clearly.
They also explained the role of creator and curator in
linking data. In [17] problems of LD were identified such
as;
• Identity
• Concept
• Publishing data
• consuming data
Conceptual issues are also there in LD technologies. In [11]
the authors identified the conceptual issues along with
technical and legal issues with relation to cultural heritage.
Some issues as identified in [10] are
• Lack of agreements to provide data, difficulty of
migrating data to new models,
• Need to develop tools for Linked Data
transformation,
• Lack of experts in different areas for the
transformations,
• Lack of applications consuming Linked Data,
VI. CONCLUSION
Addressing to technical, social, ethical, legal and
conceptual issues will not only help in the consumption of
LD technologies but will also be helpful to its adoption and
sustainability. Major barriers can be summarized as the need
of infrastructure, terminological differences of web and
libraries, issues related to data linking and modelling,
licensing, copyright and data protection. Lack of success
stories, knowledge and experience is another hindrance.
Despite of all these challenges, LD is considered as a
standardized, practical, open access mechanism Literature
establishes that LD has affordances in information
environment that will alter the challenges into opportunities.
The overall purpose of Linked Data is facilitating the re-
usability, cross-linking, and integration and sharing of data.
The adoption of Linked Data will not only provide an
interactive system but also ensure the availability and
accessibility of information, re-usable and with the
possibility of serendipitous discovery of other resources.
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AUTHORS’ BACKGROUND

Your Name Title* Research Field Personal website

Qurat Ul Ain Saleem PhD candidate Library and Information Science
Dr Nosheen Fatima Assistant Library and Information Science
Warriach Professor
Nadia Butt PhD candidate Library and Information Science