Semantic Library

Underlying the technology, the standards, the markup, the startups, there has to be a strong sense of purpose behind websites and web projects for them to be successful and used. For libraries, in the past that was putting the catalogue online, now it’s making the catalogue and its data open. For bloggers, it’s dissemination of ideas, and for others, building a community of practice [PDF].

Some of the most interesting developments online are projects aimed at social change, technology for non-profits, and information for advocacy. Whether these projects aim to persuade, organise, raise awareness, or raise funds they have something in common - using the web for a purpose.

So what’s this got to do with the Semantic Web?

On the surface of it, the Semantic Web is about creating relationships between data. This gives data flexibility and strength. Open data enables raw research information, records and more to be shared and built upon by others. Because of the power of data, many not-for-profit designers and activists are putting their energy into developing mashups and visualising information. NetSquared is currently running a mashup competition to show how they can be used for social change. The Tactical Technology Collective prepared a booklet on Information Visualization for Advocacy to show the power of presenting information as images, not just static tables and bar charts. Expect to see more projects of this type as the ability to link and build on data with RDF and query data with SPARQL and other Semantic Web tools takes off.

Tools for Change

Ethan Zuckerman has posted notes from his talk at ETech, a talk that was entitled The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism. It’s a fascinating look at all aspects of activism online, from using Google Maps to track the whereabouts of government aircraft, to pointing out injustices in land ownership; to Twitter and SMS to connect people and spread news fast. CNN’s Inside Africa program recently covered the impact of mobile phones in Africa for social organising, sharing information, and helping in the fight against HIV/AIDS by reminding people when to take their medication.  This is what we can do today. With the ability to exchange data and create meaning, these tools will be even more dynamic with the Semantic Web.

Another fascinating article looking at the hype and reality of web 2.0 and the promise of the social web for activism and change is Trebor Scholz’s article in this month’s First Monday, Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0. Scholz concludes -

By defining today’s Social Web solely through the lens of business, however, we loose track of all that, which the Web could be. Re–imagine the Social Web as a place for unmarketed, non–mainstream projects that caters to all needs of those who inhabit it.

Purpose + the Semantic Web

One of the great things about the Semantic Web is that it has the ability to provide so many services and benefits to research, data, activism, and advocacy, and to link researchers with readers and librarians, and so on. But it is important to ensure that this focus is emphasised as the Semantic Web continues to develop.

I became interested in the Semantic Web because of its potential for eResearch. As librarians, we assist researchers with databases and datasets made by others (often commercially) all the time. What role might we play in helping researchers to create their own? And how will the outputs of this data, research and social change interact online in the future? How can we help to guide and shape these processes?

Karen Coyle answers the four FRBR questions and says,

The use of FRBR has the potential to allow us to move library data into the nascent semantic web. We could even be visible pioneers in that area, given the huge amount of carefully crafted data that we have in our databases. The semantic web functionality promises a much richer information environment than our library catalogs provide today, and one in which library data can interact seamlessly with the entire Web.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be a pioneer? Check out the FRBR blog for more of Karen’s answers and previous participants.

Depending on where you live or which experts you listen to, we’re either nearing the end of Winter/Summer or already in Autumn/Spring. Whichever way, the year is still young, as is this blog, so here’s a wrapup of discussion about the semantic web, RDF, metadata and libraries from around the biblioblogosphere in 2008 to give you a sense of where we’ve been and where we’re headed -

Will I need to understand the semantic web in 2008? One Big Library, January 3 2008

Which leads me to wondering - is now the time for all good library hackers to come to grips with the state of the SemWeb art? Have we crossed some tipping point?

How Do I Create A Semantic Web Site? Maison Bisson, January 9 2008

RDF is certainly among the acronyms most identified with Semantic Web, but it’s not necessarily as complex as all that, and there are things we can do today to answer the question. Among the best of them (and one that will always deliver value), is to make sure our sites are marked up meaningfully. I know this sounds simple, but it’s surprising how few data-rich library sites take advantage of it.

Would the Real “Dublin Core” Please Stand Up? Disruptive Library Technology Jester, February 19 2008

So what is “Dublin Core”? Is it the abstract model? Is the set of terms that can be used as predicates in RDF expressions? Is it the legacy 15-element XML-based standard for describing digital objects? Count me in among those want more in trying to figure this out….

Stuart Wiebel replies, with a good summary of each including semantics.

Tim Berners-Lee and DataPortability, Library Support Staff, February 29 2008

Commenting on the Talis podcast with Tim Berners-Lee, Rick Mason notes,

Libraries are still playing catch-up in the social data area. We are starting to implement tagging and book recommendations, but we are not all that far along with implementing things. What this quote reminds me is that we should also be keeping an eye towards making it easy to export data out of our systems.

Which bibliobloggers seem to be most interested in the semantic web? There should be no surprise that at this stage cataloguers, systems librarians and those working closely with data are talking about it more than those working the reference desk. Semantic Web development is still in the realm of schemas and RDF, FRBR/RDA rather than end-user ’stuff’ that we can promote to library users.

But if you are a mostly reference-sometimes techie person (like me!) the time to be involved is now so that we can have a hand in developing what ever the stuff for users is going to be. Now is when we need to start identifying needs and problems that might be solved by the Semantic Web, rather than waiting for tools to be developed which we try to fit to needs and problems.

So who’s writing about the semantic web in LIS, and what are they writing? I plan to take a look at that through a series of Reading Notes posts. I hope to try out the Blogging on Peer Review Research (BPR3) way of blogging about scholarly articles.

So what’s out there to draw from?  Taking a look at articles in the open access repositories in LIS containing the keywords semantic web -

19 articles in D-LIST
101 articles in E-LIS

The most interesting thing besides the large difference in the number of results? How many articles in E-LIS on the topic are not in English, but rather in European languages, reflecting that development of the Semantic Web has been quite strongly supported in Europe until now.

Stay tuned for Reading Notes, soon!

Paul Miller from Talis has begun a new blog, Semantic Web, over at ZDNet. Paul will be covering Semantic Web developments from some of the major conferences over the next few months, and providing a more considered look at field. From the first post -

I intend to interpret the news, analyse the news, and draw out the big trends hidden within the news. Why does the Semantic Web matter, and what should you be doing about it?

This is very promising and definitely makes it a blog to watch.