Continuing the longstanding research program by OCLC in the field of linked data, recent projects have focused on creating sets of entities of high interest for any organization wanting to utilize linked data paradigms. Through intensive mining and clustering of WorldCat bibliographic data, name and subject authority files, and other related data sets, OCLC has produced over 300 million entity representations. These clusters pull together and represent creative works, and persons related to those works. OCLC has engaged with a number of libraries and organizations to create and experiment with this data. A pilot project during October 2015-February 2016 to explore new methods of providing access to Person entities provided a number of new directions and insights. The core purpose of the work is to understand how these entities might best be leveraged to make library workflows more efficient, and to improve the quality of metadata produced in the library sector. This presentation will provide a background on data used in the project, as well as the development of services and APIs to provision the data. It will address challenges and opportunities in the area of creating and managing entities, and ways in which they could be improved and enriched over time. |