Semantic Library

Allan Cho and Dean Giustini have recently published an article on Web 3.0 and Health Libraries [PDF]. It’s a good introduction to Web 3.0 and the Semantic Web in their field of librarianship. They discuss some of the definitions of Web 3.0 and their own vision, noting -

“The common theme here is a focus on information organization and retrieval”

Cho and Giustini explain why Web 3.0/Semantic Web will be good for health librarians – because it will improve the accuracy and efficiency of searching. Searching for health information now is difficult – not only because there is a great deal of specificity in searching some of the big databases (MeSH helps some, but not everyone can/will use it) but trying to work out what information is reliable can be very difficult.

The article describes other problems with current search technologies – it is easy to miss important information because of the way searches are constructed and limitations of databases. Findability and trust is important.

Library standards and other projects are also discussed, like RDA and RDF. But one very important point that Cho and Guistini make is that,

“there is a sense that the two groups – library professionals and semantic technologists – do not communicate or see their potential synergies.”

It is important that librarians are participating in discussions about the Semantic Web and RDF, but at the same time, we should be welcoming in those who might be interested in how we do things.

Reference:
Cho, A., Giustini, D. (2008). Web 3.0 and health librarians: an introduction. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 29(1), 13-18.

Several blogs have posted about Web 3.0 recently, most trying to come up with a central set of ideas about what it might be. For some, Web 3.0 = Semantic Web, for others, Semantic Web is just a part of it. My take on it that I wrote in October last year, if there is such a thing as Web 3.0, can be found on the About page of this blog:

• Semantic web: True write once, publish many: hamstrung until now by proprietary software, proliferation of XML schemas, and a lack of end-user tools.
• Metadata: Meaning and context within and between objects, new languages.
• Rich open data: Geotagging, eScience data for everyone
• Content anywhere, especially mobile
• Make your own software: bringing software and tool creation to the masses
• Two opposing ends: on demand anywhere (video, TV, radio, text), lightweight flexible architecture

Politics and governance issues will continue to evolve to bring;

• Ubiquitous Open Access
• Access to Knowledge (A2K) in the developing world

I think it is important to keep in mind the political and governance issues surrounding the web. The technical part of Web 3.0 is not possible without supportive research, funding, and policies. Additionally, if Web 3.0 impacts people’s lives by making communication and managing information easier, it has to include all kinds of knowledge (social, government, entertainment, scholarly) and be accessible by people all over the world regardless of language, socioeconomic and geographical barriers.

While I enjoyed all the good things the supposed Web 2.0 movement offered – community, interaction, etc – I am hoping that Web 3.0 will pay attention to the difficult issues around data, scholarly communication, and dissemination of research. Linked data is an area of research on this topic, but I hope to see more standards, policies and funding in this area.

A study of all the different ideas people have about Web 3.0 was posted by Jonas Bolinder, and fell into four categories -

• Semantic Web
• APIs and Web Services
• Mobile Web and other devices
• Implicit Web (personalisation and recommendation)

There’s a little bit of each of these in my view of Web 3.0

A post on Read/Write Web, Web 3.0 Through the Ages, sums up some of the current thinking around the term, valid or not and concludes -

“…the discussions we have about defining the next web help to solidify our vision of where we’re going — and you can’t get there until you decide where you want to go. “

I agree, and I’m interested to see where the discussions lead next.

Other recent posts on Web 3.0:

• It’s all still alpha in my eyes, Liako.biz
• After Web 2.0: WOW (Wide Open Web) – enough of version numbers for the web!!, Trends in the Living Networks

The frequency of articles, blog posts and comments about the intersection of the Semantic Web and libraries is steadily increasing! Here are a few recent items -

Semantic Interoperability Proceedings

The proceedings of the First Workshop on Semantic Interoperability in the European Digital Library which was held on June 2 are now available. The EDL digitises and makes available Europe’s cultural heritage and works to make national library catalogues interoperable. The EDL is investingating the use of Semantic Web technologies to share and exchange data and objects. Definitely worth reading – I aim to make notes here about at least some of the included papers very soon.

Semantic Web and cataloguing

The Massachusetts Library Association blog reports on a talk about RDA, Dublin Core, and the Semantic Web and where they might intersect. Diane L. Hillmann from Cornell University said -

The world of bibliographic control I think has become stale and I think we have to try to get away from that awful word “control” and move to more cooperative approaches.

She mentions that the DCMI group are now partnering with the Semantic Web community.

The importance of linked data

At derivadow.com a provocative post, Semantic Web: Why Bother? concludes that publishing linked data is the “why bother”of the Semantic Web. Open data, shared widely in open formats, enables reuse and repurposing of data by others, with minimal effort on the original producer’s behalf -

As a publisher of linked data not only are you enabling others to build cool things with your data – helping you right now – you are also helping to insulate yourself against atrophy. If your data is as open and accessible as possible – then it is relatively straight forward for your future colleagues, working on a as yet unimagined product, to use the data you are publishing right now.

The blog’s author, Tom Scott, works for the BBC who are starting to do some fantastic things with sharing and opening up their data.

Allan Cho talks with Talis

The latest Talking with Talis podcast features Allan Cho, who often writes about the Semantic Web on his blog, Allan’s Library. He coauthored a paper on the Semantic Web and Libraries with Dean Giustini that I posted about recently.