Having promoted the Open Data Manual, it’s now the turn of ‘Linked Open Data – the Essentials’ (64 page PDF, 3 Mb) by Florian Bauer and Martin Kaltenböck. It’s described as ‘A Quick Start Guide for Decision Makers’, which it justly deserves. It provides both the background to Open Data for e-government purposes and then explains why the next steps need to be linking it.
Another source of information on linked data, particularly in the context of local government may be found at the UK Local e-Government Standards Board (LeGSB) page on Publishing Local Linked Data. LeGSB has also recently been involved with the UK National Archives in collating a whole load of information and links about Information Principles for the UK Public Sector.
What this does mean is there is plenty of advise and guidance out there as to generally go about doing it, but what we need still are the people to do it, and the standards to do it by. We are getting nearer but with so few out there being able to be involved it’ll be a long time before open linked data becomes de facto in local government in the UK or I suspect anywhere else in the world.
Meanwhile, let us not forget the efforts of the Open Knowledge Foundation and their new project the School of Data – so little time, so many worthy projects!
Posted by greatemancipator 
The Great E-mancipator 