The British National Bibliography: Who uses our Linked Data?

The British Library began publishing a Linked Open Data (LOD) version of the British National Bibliography (BNB) in 2011 as part of its open metadata strategy. Although organisational benefits have been gained, it has been challenging to identify how data is used and by whom. System logs capture basic information and anecdotal usage is received via user feedback, but a lack of analytics tools has made it difficult to gain an understanding of service usage to support sustained investment. This paper describes a project between the British Library and Fujitsu Ireland that examined the insights gained from the development and application of Linked Data analytics. The results suggest such analytics offer LOD publishers many benefits, the most important being an ability to accurately assess service impact and target limited resources more effectively. By doing so publishers can begin to manage LOD services as efficiently as their web counterparts and continue the realisation of Linked Data’s potential.