The Poet movie Two articles out this week describe semantic projects which aim to improve findability and personalisation:

An EU-funded project is described in Next-generation hi-fi: deepening the musical experience. One of the aims of the projects, called Semantic Hi-Fi, is to increase the number of ways in which you can search for music -

As a result of this work, users of future hi-fi can expect to be able to navigate easily through their collections using search criteria, such as tempo, genre, instrumentation, in addition to the traditional search criteria of artist and title. If you have a particular tune running through your head, but no information on it, you can simply hum the tune into the system’s microphone and it will find it for you!

When I worked in a music library, we used to include all of this information in the catalogue, but it was done manually, and only if the information was included on the CD. This project goes much further by analysing the audio file itself to extra the data.

Libraries which circulate music may have an interest in this type of semantic technology – it could assist with research and reference questions about music, especially classical and jazz in academic environments, and in recommending new titles for clients. Further information is available on the project’s website.

The second article is about ubiquitous computing, but has some interesting possibilities for the semantic web and libraries. Democratic Parties: An Interview With UCLA Computer Scientist Kevin Eustice discusses applications which establish social and location and make recommendations. Eustice gives the example of providing local information at museums -

A pretty straightforward application we’ve considered is extending this to support context-aware museum experiences. You can provide media content directly to a device; you can customize it to social groups; you can customize based on the age or language of a person visiting the exhibit.

There are some libraries in Asia that have started to use barcode technology to activate downloads of audio and data to mobile and other handheld devices. Technology like Eustice describes is another way of providing tailored experiences to individuals.

The UBC Health Library has added a page on the Semantic Web to their wiki. Check it out for a links to resources on the concept and a great section on why health librarians should care -

The semantic web could potentially be a place where much of the knowledge of librarians and computer scientists could be built into the web itself. What’s remarkable about semantic technologies is that they will not affect the look or feel of our ‘web experiences’, and may perform tasks without our end-users’ knowledge.

An exciting prediction!