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OCLC and linked data

Shared entity management infrastructure

For decades, OCLC has provided reliable infrastructure for OCLC numbers and authority records. Now, with financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we’re building a persistent, shared, and centralized entity management infrastructure for library linked data work.

When completed in December 2021, this infrastructure will include easily accessible authoritative descriptions of works and persons, enhanced and managed by OCLC and the library community. Connections to other external vocabularies will place library collections in a broader context across the web.

As always, we’re closely collaborating with the library community to fully understand and address needs. Our entity management infrastructure will be largely API-based, allowing librarians to customize their workflows around linked data opportunities. We will also create a basic user interface for librarians to create and manage entities.

No matter how far along your library is with using new data models (including BIBFRAME), or even if you wish to continue to work in MARC, you’ll see improved data quality and workflow efficiency as a result of this new entity management infrastructure.

Lorcan Dempsey

“Reliable identifiers...”

“For linked data to move into common use, libraries need reliable and persistent identifiers and metadata for the critical entities they rely on. This project begins to build that infrastructure and advances the whole field.”

Lorcan Dempsey
Vice President
Membership and Research, and Chief Strategist
OCLC

Latest updates

  • Creating a shared entity management infrastructure

    • 15 January 2020

    On January 9th, OCLC announced that we were awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to jointly fund the development of a shared entity management infrastructure over the next two years.  

Shared entity management infrastructure advisory group members

Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur (ABES)

Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma

Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

Brigham Young University Library

British Library

Central Michigan University Libraries

Cleveland Public Library

Cornell University Library

Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB)

Harvard University

National Library of Medicine

National Library Board, Singapore

New York University Libraries

Oxford University Libraries

Princeton University Library

Smithsonian Libraries

Temple University Libraries

University of California, Davis Library

University of Minnesota Libraries

University of Pennsylvania Libraries

University of Tennessee University Libraries

University of Victoria Libraries

Yale University Library

Have a question or want to get involved?

If you have a question or are interested in joining the advisory group to provide feedback, test APIs, or help with workflow creation as our work progresses, please contact us.

On-demand webinars