Linked data: a new alphabet for the semantic web Mauro Guerrini, Tiziana Possemato What is linked data The term linked data is entering into common vocabulary and, as most interests us in this instance, into the specific terminology of library and information science. The concept is complex; we can summarize it as that set of best practices required for publishing and connecting structured data on the web for use by a machine. It is an expression used to describe a method of exposing, sharing and connecting data via Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) on the web. With linked data, in other words, we refer to data published on the web in a format readable, interpretable and, most of all, useable by machine, whose meaning is explicitly defined by a string of words and markers. In this way we constitute a linked data network (hence linked data) belonging to a domain (which constitutes the initial context), connected in turn to other external data sets (that is, those outside of the domain), in a context of increasingly extended relationships. Next is presented the Linked Open Data cloud (LOD), which collects the open data sets available on the web, and the paradigm of its exponential growth occurring in a very brief period of time which demonstrates the level of interest that linked data has garnered in organizations and institutions of different types. JLIS.it. Vol. 4, n. 1 (Gennaio/January 2013). DOI: 10.4403/jlis.it-6305