Improving Fiction Literature Access by Linked Open Data -Based Collaborative Knowledge Storage - the BookSampo Project

BookSampo is a joint project between the Finnish public libraries and semantic web researchers, to improve fiction literature search and recommendation. In the project, dozens of librarians around Finland have used a collaborative web-based metadata editor to input diverse knowledge about fiction literature into a shared database. Particularly, the project has sought to improve access by indexing not only bibliographical information about the books, but focusing on the content and context of the works. In order to do this, the database employs advanced techniques such as functional, content-centered indexing, ontological vocabularies and the networked data model of linked open data. To demonstrate the functionality this makes possible, the fiction literature portal http://www.kirjasampo.fi/ was created. This portal uses the knowledge created in the project to offer advanced semantic search and recommendation based on the database created. In addition, web services exposing direct access to the data have been used for example in culture hack events to answer more complex questions, such as where in Finland are the most crimes committed in fiction literature.