After the great success of Linked Data and Libraries 2010 we are doing it again!

Linked Data and Libraries 2011 will be held at The British Library in London on Thursday July 14th.  Again it will be a free event, with limited spaces allocated, so register early.

The agenda is yet to be finalised, but as per 2010 it will be a mixture of general Linked Data overviews & experience, and library Linked Data speakers.  We hope to hear from the British Library, W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group, LOD-LAM Summit, and others. We are also hoping to find time for the 10 minute lightening talks slot, that worked so well last time.

Register early and/or if you would like to propose a topic or speaker, email me – richard.wallis@talis.com.

Image from a photo on Flickr by Fuzzyyol

As Linked Data becomes more established, a new book has been published that captures the state of the art and current best practices in the field. Authored by Dr Tom Heath, lead researcher at Talis, and Professor Christian Bizer‌ of the Freie Universität Berlin, “Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space” introduces the basic principles and rationale of Linked Data and provides detailed guidance for those exploring this emerging area of Web technology.

Abstract:

The World Wide Web has enabled the creation of a global information space comprising linked documents. As the Web becomes ever more enmeshed with our daily lives, there is a growing desire for direct access to raw data not currently available on the Web or bound up in hypertext documents. Linked Data provides a publishing paradigm in which not only documents, but also data, can be a first class citizen of the Web, thereby enabling the extension of the Web with a global data space based on open standards – the Web of Data. In this Synthesis lecture we provide readers with a detailed technical introduction to Linked Data. We begin by outlining the basic principles of Linked Data, including coverage of relevant aspects of Web architecture. The remainder of the text is based around two main themes – the publication and consumption of Linked Data. Drawing on a practical Linked Data scenario, we provide guidance and best practices on: architectural approaches to publishing Linked Data; choosing URIs and vocabularies to identify and describe resources; deciding what data to return in a description of a resource on the Web; methods and frameworks for automated linking of data sets; and testing and debugging approaches for Linked Data deployments. We give an overview of existing Linked Data applications and then examine the architectures that are used to consume Linked Data from the Web, alongside existing tools and frameworks that enable these. Readers can expect to gain a rich technical understanding of Linked Data fundamentals, as the basis for application development, research or further study.

You can access a copy of Linked Data: Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space here.

Building on the successful series of free Platform and Linked Data Open Days in the past, we are delighted to announce an expanded schedule of events for 2011.

Talis Linked Data Open Days are an ideal introduction to Linked Data and the Semantic Web either as a broad topic or focused on a particular sector.

We are continuing the formula of a relaxed participative format, with opportunities to network lubricated by excellent SPARQL-blend coffee and a free lunch.

The next Linked Data Open Day takes place on 22 March 2011, registration is now open.

There are also a series of Linked Data Specialist Days coming up soon. Keep an eye on our events pages, or subscribe to Talis Platform News for further information, as soon as it becomes available.

A short while ago, my colleague Zach Beauvais podcasted with the Vice President of Engineering at Talis Inc., David Wood. In this conversation, David discusses his background, Linked Data and SPARQL. He also talks about Talis Inc.s’ first US customer: the US Government Printing Office (GPO) and its Persistent URL infrastructure, which provides persistent Web addresses for critical government documents and is primarily used by the more than 1,200 Federal Depository Libraries. The PURL server uses the PURLz open source software, the development of which was led by David while at Zepheira, and complements the data hosting and search capabilities of the Talis Platform with identifier management functionality.

For more information, you can follow David on Twitter on read his blog.

Each month, Talis Inc CEO, Bernadette Hyland participates in The Semantic Link podcast series amongst other Semantic thought leaders. Paul Miller, the host of the series, introduces episode one and the “PodPanel” which includes: Peter Brown, currently Chair of the Board of Directors of standards body OASIS; Christine Connors, a consultant specialising in ontology and taxonomy design and related issues; Eric Franzon, Vice President of WebMediaBrands; Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); Eric Hoffer, Consultant and Andraz Tori, CTO of Zemanta. The second instalment is also now available.

Issue 12 of Nodalities is now available for download.

In this issue, some rather practical things that Linked Data is good at solving are being put to use saving lives: quite literally, as Bart van Leeuwen explains in our cover story. Simple ideas joining up public data and GIS devices are helping the Amsterdam fire service get their equipment to the scenes of fires more quickly and safely.

Elsewhere, Martin Belam, an information architect at the Guardian, tells us about their approach to Linked Data, and what it means to them. Talis’ Leigh Dodds outlines some of the challenge and opportunities of Linked Data in an evolving world in his article. Also supporting Linked Data research is the multi-organisational LATC Project which is introduced in this issue. And finally, Tim Hodson discusses a very practical approach to starting with Linked Data, and may also discuss eating an elephant.

You can subscribe to Nodalities for free here and read previous issues here.

Talis’ new subsidiary, Talis Inc., was announced just one busy month ago.  As Talis’ new chief geek in North America it is high time for me to introduce myself to the Nodalities community.

I am a software engineer with a long history working on the Web, developing Semantic Web and Linked Data infrastructure and building Web standards.  At Talis, I will be helping to define our market entry into the North American market and contributing to the technical direction of the Talis offerings.

Talis is a wonderful company to work for.  The environment is extremely collegial and pleasant, although also very productive.  I look forward to contributing to both the company and its communities, and to bringing some of the Talis culture into North America.

Talis Inc’s CEO, Bernadette Hyland, and I have started several companies together including Semantic Web startup Tucana Inc (sold to Northrop Grumman Corporation in 2005) and, more recently, the SemWeb consultancy Zepheira.  Much of our previous work has been released as Open Source Software, including the Mulgara Semantic Store, a popular Semantic Web database, the Persistent URL software and, most recently, a project aimed at making Semantic Web and Linked Data applications easier to create, called Callimachus.

The success of the Web is based on standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), so I have tried to help them whenever possible.  I co-chaired the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group and, more recently, the RDF Next Steps workshop.  In 2011, I’ll be co-chairing a new working group aimed at updating the Resource Description Framework (RDF), the technical standard underlying the Semantic Web and Linked Data.

The growth of Linked Data has lead to some truly interesting applications.  I’ve been working with many others to collect some of those use cases into book form.  The goal is to help others replicate those early successes.  The first book, Linking Enterprise Data has just been published and is available freely on the Web. It may also be purchased in ebook and printed form.  A second book is to be entitled Linking Government Data.  We are currently seeking contributions, so please contact me if you have a good story to tell about the use of Linked Data in government settings.

I occasionally teach computer science and mathematics courses at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Most recently I’ve taught Computer Networking and Introduction to Discrete Mathematics.  It looks like I’ll be teaching an upper division elective on Linked Data during the summer of 2011.  I thoroughly enjoy working with university students.  Theirs is a fascinating time of life, when they choose how they see themselves as individuals and what they will (at least initially) do for a living.  They also help me keep a fresh perspective on our rapidly changing world.  Seeing the Web through their eyes is really very different than seeing it through mine.

We, as a community, built the Web. We continue to build our community as we build the Web. I look forward to being on the journey with you.

To quote John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, from that wonderful bit of 1980s TV, “I love it when a plan comes together!”.   Of course aficionados of the A-Team will probably remember ‘the plan’ was often only apparent in retrospect, although it’s general intention was clear from the start.

The adoption of  Linked Data and the realisation of all that potential benefit, is looking a bit like an A-Team episode – the eventual outcome being clear from the start, but with many setbacks, skirmishes to fight, partners to woo, nerves to calm, and teams to lead on the way.

To break the metaphor at this point, I see Linked Data as more of a shared vision than a plan laid out before us.  Nevertheless, I think we are staring to see elements of it ‘starting to come together’.

One very obvious example, is what Ordnance Survey is doing by continuing to open up their location data.  Now that OS have defined a URI for every UK postcode unit [eg. ‘SO16 4GU’ = http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/id/postcodeunit/SO164GU], why would anyone [re-]publishing data in the future not use these identifiers to reference their postcode information?  By that simple step they will be linked in with a wealth of ancillary information about the location – easting/northing, ward, district, county, country, etc.

Great I hear you say, but show me an example of what that could lead to!  Being lazy, I’ll let the inimitable John Goodwin of the OS do it for me.  In his recent appropriately named “So what can I do with the new Ordnance Survey Linked Data?” post, he shows how by merging data from a previous Talis project, produced for the Department of Innovation and Skills, he can deliver a very different way of accessing the same data. 

The BIS Research Funding Explorer project brought together data about UK Government research funding, from several research councils and the Intellectual Property Office, and brought them together in a Linked Data driven application to display UK centres of research excellence. 

John explains how by mixing Linked Data, published for that project, with OS Linked Data, he has been able to develop a different way of accessing the data.  In his, prototype, application you are presented with a map of the UK showing the regions as defined by the European Union.  By clicking on one of the EU regions you are presented with a list of the projects from within that area.  He has also added the ability to access by county or District/Unitary Authority. A simple, but effective, way of demonstrating that data, in Linked Data form, from one source can be easily combined with data from another source to deliver benefit.

Of course even with this example we are seeing the effect of joining just a couple of jigsaw pieces together.  With Linked Data, such as this from OS, being published at an ever increasing rate, it will not be long before a bigger picture starts to form as more and more data pieces are linked together.

I love it when you can see a plan coming together!

Having moved over to the UK from the States quite a few years ago now, one of the things I noticed about company names was that they tend to use “LTD,” and for reasons unknown, I somehow always thought Talis Inc sounded better than Talis LTD.

Well, I’m very happy to be able to say that Talis Group LTD, will now have a new subsidiary with the excellent name: Talis Inc. The Inc means, of course, that we’ll have a new member of the Talis Group bringing our Platform, managed services and expertise to the United States.

Based in Virginia, Talis Inc will be ably lead by Bernadette Hyland, the new CEO of Talis Inc. She will be joined and supported by David Wood as VP Engineering. Together, Bernadette and David bring to Talis a huge amount of Semantic Web experience and a remarkable reputation: both entrepreneurs were founders of Tucana—one of the first commercial triple store vendors—and were most recently at the Semantic Web consultancy Zepheira.

Alongside a new subsidiary comes Talis’ first US customer: the US Government Printing Office (GPO). Talis will be running the GPO’s PURL infrastructure, which provides provides persistent Web addresses for critical government documents and is primarily used by the more than 1,200 Federal Depository Libraries. The PURL server uses the PURLz open source software, the development of which was led by David while at Zepheira, and complements the data hosting and search capabilities of the Talis Platform with identifier management functionality.

So, please join me in welcoming a stellar entrepreneurial team, our first US customer, and the addition of an Inc to the Talis family!

A couple weeks ago, the BBC asked us to load a set of data into the Talis Platform to support an upcoming episode of Panorama. The episode, airing tonight at 8:30pm BST, will cover public-sector pay. They’re looking particularly into the topic of the highest-paid public sector jobs, especially the jobs of senior civil servants paid more than the UK Prime Minister.

The episode, which aired last night at 8:30pm, covered public-sector pay. It looked particularly into the topic of the highest-paid public sector jobs, especially the jobs of senior civil servants paid more than the UK Prime Minister.

So, we modelled the data the BBC supplied, converted it into Linked Data and loaded the lot into the Talis Platform. The BBC’s is pulling data from the their Platform stores to power the Panorama exploration tool, which you can use here.

The exploration tool gives you an interactive view of where top public-sector salaries are going, sorting by sector and giving you a facetted picture. So, you can have a quick glance at the top 10 positions in Local Government, then filter down to find those of Wales, or even deeper and have a look at the district councils of, say, the Northwest of England.

The explorer is making use of the Linked Data API—the same thing that works with data.gov.uk—giving their developers the data formats such as JSON which are used in the application. So, whenever you click your way through the explorer, you are pulling at the end of an interesting string of data-driven wheels and cogs; the end of which is all linked up and SPARQLy.

The BBC have taken Linked Data very seriously, and it’s even something that’s influenced the way they’re thinking about information architecture more widely. They’ve built much of the framework behind projects like the Wildlife Finder and their World Cup site on Linked Data principles. For a peak at this world, a great place to start would be Silver Oliver’s recent post about the Semantic Web. And for more about the way this story unfolds, watch last night’s Panorama on BBC iPlayer if you’re in the UK.