diff --git a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ontology/update/OntologyUpdater.java b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ontology/update/OntologyUpdater.java
index 9e19b0aa1..d74a2cf88 100644
--- a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ontology/update/OntologyUpdater.java
+++ b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ontology/update/OntologyUpdater.java
@@ -2,15 +2,24 @@
 
 package edu.cornell.mannlib.vitro.webapp.ontology.update;
 
+import java.io.BufferedReader;
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
+import java.io.FileReader;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.util.List;
 
 import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
 
+import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
+import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+
 import com.hp.hpl.jena.query.Query;
 import com.hp.hpl.jena.query.QueryExecution;
 import com.hp.hpl.jena.query.QueryExecutionFactory;
 import com.hp.hpl.jena.query.QueryFactory;
+import com.hp.hpl.jena.query.Syntax;
 import com.hp.hpl.jena.rdf.model.Model;
 import com.hp.hpl.jena.shared.Lock;
 
@@ -34,6 +43,8 @@ public class OntologyUpdater {
 	private final String SUCCESS_RDF_FORMAT = "N3";
 	private final String DIFF_FILE = DATA_DIR + "diff.tab.txt";
 	
+	private final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(OntologyUpdater.class);
+	
 	private ServletContext context;
 	private OntModelSelector ontModelSelector;
 	
@@ -43,7 +54,7 @@ public class OntologyUpdater {
 		this.ontModelSelector = ontModelSelector;
 	}
 	
-	public void update() {	
+	public void update() throws IOException {	
 		// Check to see if the update is necessary.
 		if (updateRequired()) {
 			performUpdate();
@@ -84,7 +95,7 @@ public class OntologyUpdater {
 	 * Executes a SPARQL ASK query to determine whether the knowledge base
 	 * needs to be updated to conform to a new ontology version
 	 */
-	private boolean updateRequired() {
+	private boolean updateRequired() throws IOException {
 		String sparqlQueryStr = loadSparqlQuery(ASK_QUERY_FILE);
 		if (sparqlQueryStr == null) {
 			return false;
@@ -100,8 +111,18 @@ public class OntologyUpdater {
 	 * @param filePath
 	 * @return the query string or null if file not found
 	 */
-	private String loadSparqlQuery(String filePath) {
-		return null; // TODO implement me!
+	private String loadSparqlQuery(String filePath) throws IOException {
+		File file = new File(context.getRealPath(filePath));	
+		if (!file.exists()) {
+			return null;
+		}
+		BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
+		StringBuffer fileContents = new StringBuffer();
+		String ln;		
+		while ((ln = reader.readLine()) != null) {
+			fileContents.append(ln).append('\n');
+		}
+		return fileContents.toString();				
 	}
 	
 	private void assertSuccess() {