Everything is Connected: Linked Data and the Humanities

Abstract

From the centralized static web of the 1990’s to the interactive social web of the 2000s, our online environments continue to evolve at breakneck pace. Linked data architects have already begun to design the next generation web, and their ideas have been adopted by technology powerhouses, media giants, and large research organizations. Proponents of linked data aim to create the Semantic Web – a web that can be read by both humans and machines. This new machine-operable web will allow computers to perform far more sophisticated search, retrieval, and data recombination tasks than ever previously possible, and will even support machine-based reasoning. This session will provide a gentle introduction to the linked data standards that will underpin Web 3.0, and will briefly explore the potential of semantic technologies for humanities research.