I have been seeing an enormous amount of momentum in the library industry toward “linked data”, often in the form of a fairly ambitious collective project to rebuild much of our infrastructure around data formats built on linked data. I think linked data technology is interesting and can be useful. But I have some concerns about how it appears to me it’s being approached. I worry that “linked data” is being approached as a goal in and of itself, and what it is meant to accomplish (and how it will or could accomplish those things) is being approached somewhat vaguely. I worry that this linked data campaign is being approached in a risky way from a “project management” point of view, where there’s no way to know if it’s “working” to accomplish it’s goals until the end of a long resource-intensive process. I worry that there’s an “opportunity cost” to focusing on linked data in itself as a goal, instead of focusing on understanding our patrons needs, and how we can add maximal value for our patrons.
