Semantic Library

Despite advocating for neutral design (not tied to one particular platform or device), I have been interested in libraries that are looking at iPhone/Touch/Pre applications to provide catalogue searching, collection information and so on. What I would love to see is a general library app that helps librarians and users find and access libraries all over. As anyone who uses public libraries knows, that information can get buried on council and municipality sites, and even academic libraries have found that their homepage links have been disappearing in increasing numbers.

What could such an app include?

• Maps of all publicly accessible libraries near you (location aware) and at a given location worldwide
• Information about access - can you use the Internet without a membership card? Are there access gates? Are books on open access shelves?
• Are there local traveller services? One thing that has always struck me in all of my travels is how few libraries make available information about the local area in a prominent spot. So often I have had to be buried in the collection to find street directories, local maps or local travel guides, or ask at the reference desk for the librarian’s copy. It has always seemed like an obvious and easy service that libraries could provide since they have the resources already and because libraries are so often located in key areas in cities and towns.

What else would you be interested in?

Today I find myself perched in the foyer of the British Library, without enough ID to get a reader’s pass so instead of working, I am making the most of the free wifi here. Or at least I would, but for the service not working on my, ahem, brand new iPod Touch.

Those who follow my Twitter feed would know that I have gone back on forth on the why or why nots to get a Touch or an iPhone. An iPhone didn’t work for me because I don’t use cellular service very much at all, and the price plans didn’t seem logical. I had been holding out for a device that would function as a replacement for a laptop at conferences - eg ability to make videos, take photos, blog on the go etc.

So why did I get a iPod Touch, which doesn’t do most of those things? Apple in the UK are offering the Education bundle which includes a nearly-free iPod Touch, and so I got one yesterday. So far, I’ve loaded it up with RSS readers and social networking apps, but I am hoping to use location aware services that tap into semantic search, like a more accurate Urban Spoon that picks a restaurant for you based on where you are now or the quickest Underground route to get somewhere else.

A barrier to location aware services though is the availability of wifi. At home I can share my (somewhat poor) mobile broadband connection with my iPod using my MacBook. But when out and about, I rely on being able to pick up a connection. Connections with have an authentication service behind them, like that here at the British Library, are problemmatic. The SSID does’t show up (BL), or security apps need to be installed (UTS, Athens airport, EduRoam), or accounts need to be created in a browser (eg The Cloud). While organisations have good reasons for requiring authentication and acceptance of terms and conditions, it can make getting online with a Linux or Mac based system hard, let alone trying to do so with a mobile device. My mobile phone has wifi that I hardly ever use because of authentication layers.

It is very difficult to support platforms like mobile devices which have enormous diversity in operating systems, features and usage in different markets. I have noticed that Blackberries seem to be more popular in London than iPhones were in Sydney, and Push to Talk really does seem to be a feature that only those in the US use. Phones are completely different again in Japan (though I would buy a Japanese phone if I could) and serve very different needs in the African market. How can an organisation possibly provide a service like wifi that will enable all devices to connect easily and securely? How can we steer away from designing apps and authentication just for PCs, Android, or Symbian, or Palm and design universally? Is it even possible?

Beyond authentication, the dream of city-wide wifi seems to be long dead, with many announced project never coming to fruition and existing services mostly being run by a variety of subscription services that greatly restrict where you can get online. For example, I can use The Cloud with my mobile broadband account, but there are no hotspots near me. Yesterday, Ofcom in the UK released a report about Internet take-up across the UK. Turning the figures around, there are a lot of people who don’t have Internet at home (I currently am one of them - there is no phone line in my flat and cable Internet is not wired to my floor). There is a need to provide Internet in and out of the home other than private subscription, and wifi is one way to do it.

With all the distractions of my move across the world, it wasn’t until now (thanks, Jenna!) that I saw “Discovering Linked Data” was published in Library Journal last month. I aimed to cover a few different areas that Linked Data may be useful in, especially research support and discovery layers for catalogues, areas that I was working in at the time of writing the article. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Open catalogue data is an an issue that arose when I first started working in libraries. I worked in a multicultural music library. I catalogued in more than 60 languages, all original, because our systems didn’t interface with cooperative cataloguing systems (and we had a non-standard cataloguing record, to boot), and the uniqueness of our catalogue in Australia did not make it worthwhile. But surely, there would have been other libraries across the world that we could and should have shared our data with. And I would have liked to share my work, knowing that we were duplicating work with our sister library in another city. We would have been able to identify collection strengths across the world, share resources, and perhaps even find partners to share our collections instead of having to do extensive legwork in obtaining materials in the first place.

I think Linked Data will have a big impact on larger institutions, but smaller ones also have a lot to gain by sharing in ways that were not possible or practical before.

The blog may have been quiet of late, but there has been a great deal happening out there. From linked data developments (especially at the Library of Congress) to some great new mobile tools, it’s been a busy couple of months.

Regular blogging on these developments and others will resume in the next couple of weeks, as I’ve been otherwise occupied by a move to London. I will leave Australia (again, I moved back in August last year) next week. I’m thrilled that the timing means I will be able to attend Mash Oop North in early July and will report back on that event here.

Amusingly enough, what has occupied quite a bit of my attention in the move is working out what to do for broadband and mobile service. I have been debating the pros and cons of buying an iPhone, or a netbook, European data roaming and mobile broadband. I have decided to be sensible and stick with my current hardware, but a lazyweb question if I may. Does anyone know of a good provider for mobile broadband roaming across Europe? Something like Vodafone Passport for broadband?

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day to celebrate women in computing. Hooray! Read more about great women in computing at ACM-W.

One of the things I love about librarianship is that there are so many opportunities to do amazing things with computers, from social networking, to blogging, to sysadmin’ing, to programming. And I’ve been inspired by so many others, irrespective of gender. Some people who inspire me right now are on the list at Shovers and Makers doing wonderful things every day.

I’ve been the only girl in the university computer club, and I’ve built computers out of spare parts, and typed up programs from the back of magazines in the 80s, but ‘computing’ never seemed like an actual career option at the time. So I’m glad that librarianship has so many ways to explore your interest, no matter whether that’s putting on exhibitions, helping people at the refdesk, or writing about data. And a lot of that has to do with the inspirational people who have led the way in defining what this profession is about.