OCLC Releases WorldCat Works (197 Million Bibliographic Work Descriptions) as Linked Data

Note: This project was announced on February 25, 2014 when a preview went live. Our post includes a recorded video.
From Today’s Announcement:

OCLC has made 197 million bibliographic work descriptions—WorldCat Works—available as linked data, a format native to the Web that will improve discovery of library collections through a variety of popular sites and Web services.
Release of this data marks another step toward providing interconnected linked data views of WorldCat. By making this linked data available, library collections can be exposed to the wider Web community, integrating these collections and making them more easily discoverable through websites and services that library users visit daily, such as Google, Wikipedia and social networks.
“Bibliographic data stored in traditional record formats has reached its limits of efficiency and utility,” said Richard Wallis, OCLC Technology Evangelist. “New technologies, influenced by the Web, now enable us to move toward managing WorldCat data as entities—such as ‘Works,’ ‘People,’ ‘Places’ and more—as part of the global Web of data.”
OCLC has created authoritative work descriptions for bibliographic resources found in WorldCat, bringing together multiple manifestations of a work into one logical authoritative entity. The release of “WorldCat Works” is the first step in providing linked data views of rich WorldCat entities. Other WorldCat descriptive entities will be created and released over time.

Example of a Linked Data Record
See Also: How to Explore WorldCat Linked Data
See Also: OCLC Linked Data Web Site

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