by Zach Miller
Quick Summary
23 Linked Data Things is a free, self-paced online learning series. Project leader Sara Ring discussed the project with Library Journal in an article published February 26, 2025.
In the summer of 2022, when asked what Minitex should work on in the coming 1-2 years, a staff person from an academic library in central Minnesota replied, "Helping us prepare for the transition to linked data! We'll need to do it, but it seems so impossible."
Luckily, Minitex librarian Sara Ring was already on the job, along with her collaborators in Minnesota and Illinois:
- Greta Bahnemann, Metadata Librarian, Minitex
- Lizzy Baus, Metadata Librarian, Macalester College
- Violet Fox, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian, Northwestern University
- Hsianghui Liu-Spencer, Cataloging & Digital Services Librarian, Carleton College
By November of 2023, the group had published Thing 23: Reflections on the Future of Linked Data, and, with that, the project was complete. Since publication began, the 23 roughly one-hour modules have been visited more than 35,000 times, and a bare minimum of 300 people have completed at least one Thing. (Reporting completion of a module in return for a certificate is voluntary on the part of the learner.)
Library Journal honored Ring as one of its 2024 Movers and Shakers for her efforts and those of her collaborators, and published an follow-up interview this week.
The recognition is appreciated, but Ring is quick to direct attention to the team that completed the project together, and the benefit their work could have for information seekers.
"Doing this project as a group was very gratifying," she told me. "Library staff connect people to good information. The more we all learn about and use new ways to connect our users to good information, such as through the use of linked data, the easier it will be for people to find the information they need. As a librarian, that is really heartening to see."
