Computers increasingly collect, manage, and analyse data for scholarly research. Linked data gives libraries the ability to support this e-research, making it a powerful tool. Libraries are at a tipping point in adoption of linked data, and this issue of Library Technology Reports explores current research in linked open data, explaining concepts and pioneering services, such as

• Five building blocks of metadata data model, content rules, metadata schema, data serialisation, and data exchange
• Three case studies Europeana, Digital Public Library of America, and BIBFRAME
• How libraries, archives and museums are currently addressing such issues as metadata quality, open data and business models, cross community engagement, and implementation