Presenter
Ashley Caselli (@ashleycaselli)
Abstract
This presentation introduces nanopublications to a library audience, showing how existing library metadata can be transformed into FAIR-compliant, citable knowledge units, and why the ecosystem is ready for practical adoption today.
A nanopublication is a minimal, self-contained, and citable unit of knowledge expressed in RDF. It packages a single assertion together with provenance and publication metadata, making it Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) by design. Each nanopublication receives a persistent identifier, carries machine-readable provenance, and is built on open web standards (RDF, SPARQL, established ontologies), ensuring interoperability with existing library data models and broader LOD infrastructures. Open-source APIs and tooling support authoring, publishing, querying, and federating nanopublications at scale.
For libraries, nanopublications open concrete opportunities: enriching bibliographic metadata with granular, traceable claims; publishing controlled vocabulary decisions as citable, interoperable assertions; or contributing to decentralised scholarly knowledge graphs. The presentation walks through the core concepts, demonstrates the main tools, and shows how library data can be published and consumed as nanopublications — with FAIR compliance built in and low barriers to entry.
Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of what nanopublications are, why they align with library commitments to open standards and interoperability, and concrete first steps to experiment with the ecosystem in their own institution.