Linking, really linking

Some time ago I posted a bit of wishful thinking about linking search engine results to library holdings. Now Overdrive has made this a reality, at least in Bing:

This appears in the "extended information" area of a Bing search for the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo trilogy. This is based on you having an Overdrive account and I believe you may also have to have given the browser permission to use your location.




I don't usually use Bing, and so I was unaware that Bing has made much better use of linked data (in part promoted by the use of schema.org standards) than Google. Here is the Google extended sidebar for the same book:

Google results

Now look at what Bing provides:

Bing results

 
If you can't see that there are advantages to linked data after looking at these examples, then, like the global warming deniers, you just don't want to be confused by the facts. Now to get on to how we can make library offerings as rich as this.

**HT to Eric Hellman for blogging this from ALA.