Semantic Library

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.

Rob Styles and other members of the team at Talis have put together a paper on MARC, RDF and relationships in data, Semantic Marc, MARC21 and The Semantic Web. [PDF]

The article provides a concise overview of RDF and would be a good introduction for cataloguers familiar with MARC who have an interest in the semantic web.

As a non-cataloguer myself these days, the article is also a nice roundup of the current state of MARC21, and some of limitations. It is an interesting look at doing three great things: transforming, extending and reusing existing data. The amount of valuable data in MARC formats is staggering - projects such as this have potential to increase that value even more.

Most interesting to me was the discussion about authority. This is to me one of the greatest potentials and promises of the semantic web. The article proposes ways of generating URIs to deal with variants of names and titles.

In the future, the team will be comparing their output with other projects such as Bibliontology, RDF Book Mashup, and MarcOnt.

Libraries are moving quickly beyond banning of phones and embracing the potential of mobile technologies. Some do this by providing a more welcoming physical space for phones, and others are developing SMS reference and mobile-friendly sites. As ownership of mobile-enabled devices increases not only in developed nations but in the developing world, the mobile web has enormous potential to be a lightweight, flexible architecture solution to bridging the digital divide.

I’ve put together a page of resources on the mobile web and uses for libraries. Please feel free to contribute links to projects and mobile resources for this page in the comments or on our wiki.