[open-bibliography] Names Added to ID.LOC.GOV

[Ford, Kevin]

Announcement:  New Vocabulary Data Added to LC Authorities and Vocabularies Service 

The Library of Congress is pleased to make available additional vocabularies from its Authorities and Vocabularies web service (ID.LOC.GOV), which provides access to Library of Congress standards and vocabularies as Linked Data. The new dataset is: 

* Library of Congress Name Authority File (LC/NAF)

In addition, the service has been enhanced to provide separate access to the following datasets which have been a part of the LCSH dataset access:

* Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms
* Library of Congress Children's Headings

The LC/NAF data are published in RDF using the MADS/RDF and SKOS/RDF vocabularies, as are the other datasets. Individual concepts are accessible at the ID.LOC.GOV web service via a web browser interface or programmatically via content-negotiation. The vocabulary data are available for bulk download in MADS and SKOS RDF (the Name file and main LCSH file will be available by Friday, August 12).

**Please explore it for yourself at http://id.loc.gov. **

Contact Us about ID:  
As always, your feedback is important and welcomed. Though we are interested in all forms of constructive commentary on all topics related to ID, we're particularly interested in how the data available from ID.LOC.GOV is used. Your contributions directly inform service enhancements.  

The addition of Names has resulted in considerable changes to the ID.LOC.GOV backend.  Although we have endeavored to bring the service up with all pieces in place, please be patient as we work out any remaining "kinks".  

You can send comments or report any problems to us via the ID feedback form or ID listserv (see the web site).

Background:
The Authorities and Vocabularies web service was first made available in May 2009 and offered the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), the Library's initial entry into the Linked Data environment. In part by assigning each vocabulary and each data value within it a unique resource identifier (URI), the service provides a means for machines to semantically access, use, and harvest authority and vocabulary data that adheres to W3C recommendations, such as Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), and the more detailed vocabulary MADS/RDF. In this way, the Authorities and Vocabularies web service also makes government data publicly and freely available in the spirit of the Open Government directive. Although the primary goal of the service is to enable machine access to Library of Congress data, a web interface serves human users searching and browsing the vocabularies.  The new datasets join the term and code lists already available through the service: 

* Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
* Thesaurus of Graphic Materials
* MARC Code List for Relators
* MARC Code List for Countries (which reference their equivalent ISO 3166 codes)
* MARC Code List for Geographic Areas
* MARC Code List for Languages (which have been cross referenced with ISO 639-1, 639-2, and 639-5, where appropriate)
* PREMIS vocabularies for Cryptographic Hash Functions, Preservation Events, and Preservation Level Roles 

The above code lists also contain links with appropriate LCSH and LC/NAF headings.  Additional vocabularies will be added in the future, including additional PREMIS controlled vocabularies.


--
Kevin Ford
Digital Project Coordinator
Network Development & MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20540-4402

Email: kefo at loc.gov
Tel: 202 707 3526