Pathways, parallels and pitfalls: the Scholarly Web, the ESRC and Linked Open Data*

Abstract This paper highlights key principles that the eScholarship Research Centre (ESRC) shares with the Linked Open Data (LOD) community, primarily relationship-centric contextualisation of information resources, and a commitment to producing and publishing sustainable, standards-based data outputs suitable for machine-based interchange. This paper illustrates how these principles have enabled the ESRC, without pursuing LOD as a specific end, to hold a path close to the Linked Data road. We also note that, by extension, this has positioned the ESRC ready to translate many of its resources into LOD formats in exchanges where complementary technologies and ontology mappings are available.