Linked Data seems to hold such promise. But linking data just for the sake of linking data doesn't really make sense. Not unless one can access the data that various institutions and individuals have been, each in their own little corners, linking.
How can one query Linked Data? Search it, retrieve it, use it?
That's where Sparql comes in.
Unfortunately, learning Sparql can be a little daunting for non-programmers like myself. So it's nice to find both MOOCs like INRIA's thorough "Introduction to Linked Data" as well as excellent Youtube videos like the one below.
Where can one find this Linked Data? One way is through what's called Sparql Endpoints. Sometimes these work. Sometimes they don't. Below are a couple of very very big ones that do (or mostly do).
- DBPEDIA Sparql Endpoint
- British Museum Sparql Endpoint
- Europeana Sparql Endpoint
- Getty Vocabularies Sparql Endpoint
- BNF Sparql Endpoint
- Yale Center for British Art Sparql Endpoint
- SPARQL endpoints for the authority files of the German National Library
- More Sparql Endpoints from W3C
There is real power here, but it is not easy to access. User friendly Sparql is not. But the possibility of searching across multiple data bases and through all kinds of layers and types of data is a tantalizing one and one, I hope, that will prove worth the effort.
I am extremely grateful to INRIA for their information-packed Mooc "Introduction to a Web of Linked Data", which took some of the fear away and make it possible to get started. There is much to learn...
