Back in February Rob Styles presented at the excellent Code4lib Conference in Portland.  Rob’s presentation was on the subject of the research work that he, and a couple of colleagues, had been involved in to apply RDF and Semantic Web techniques to extract relationships from within MARC data.

This 20 minute presentation gave real insight in to how applying these techniques could usefully liberate great information value, that is currently trapped within MARC records and the way we use them.

The organising folks behind this year’s Code4lib (a massive hat tip in their direction for a great conference) have recently published videos of the sessions, which are attached to the individual session pages linked from the conference schedule. So here you can watch Rob’s presentation.

As Rob says in his presentation, this is a sub-set of work he has been involved with. More on the subject, including a more detailed description around disambiguation, can be found in the paper Semantic Marc, MARC21 and The Semantic Web, published by Rob, Nadeem Shabir, and Danny Ayers.

This paper has been prepared for presentation as part of the Linked Data on the Web Workshop at WWW2008 in Beijing next week.  Looking at the workshop program, it is one I would loved to have attended.  Seeing Rob and Nad describe how Semantic Web techniques can extract great value from MARC data, and how bibliographic data in that form can become a great resource in the world of linked data, would be a bonus in attending.  Hopefully there will be more videos from that event to watch.

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Checking out my recent postings both here and on my personal travelogue blog It Occurs, you may have noticed I’ve been in Australia for the last couple of weeks.

The main reason I was  there, and the highlight of the trip was the National Library of Australia’s Innovative Ideas Forum, held a the National Library in Canberra on Thursday last.  I wasn’t sure what to make of it, when I saw the published program.  The organisers describe it as an eclectic mix, and they are not wrong.  Nevertheless it is a mix that works, and works well.

In town, in fact in library, at the same time was the IIPC with their General Assembly Meeting and a series of workshops where those that are interested in archiving and preserving the content of the Internet, were getting their head around the issues both technical and co-operational in this sphere.

As you can imagine the folks from the Internet Archive play a major role in the IIPC and were well represented.  The Innovative Ideas Forum organisers took advantage of this, and Kris Carpenter Negulescu provided a fascinating  presentation [ppt] in the morning, and her colleague Gordon Mohr closed the day with his thoughts on the future of archiving the web [ppt].

Archiving was only one theme for the day, the other, kicked off by myself [pdf] was the coming of the Semantic Web.  My message of Web 2.0 being a stop on the journey that the Semantic Web, or Web 3.0, will build upon, was well received. 

During the afternoon Stewart Wallace gave us a view of the issues around building the Dictionary of Sydney.  This historical site, going live very soon, which captures the history and connections between people, places and artifacts associated with Sydney and the area around it.  This throws up many issues, such as how you track the different uses a site has had of the years, what buildings have been on that site, and who the architects and benefactors have been.  Stewart confided in me at lunchtime that he was very pleased that I had introduced the Semantic Web before his presentation, making his job easier.  You can see why,  when you analyse their problem of associating, what the terms factoids, with artifacts. 

A factoid being of two types: Intransitive - Francis Greenway Architect – 1814-1828; and Transitive - Francis Greenway ArchitectOf – Hyde Park Barracks – 1817-1819.  The second, transitive factoid being the difficult one to represent as Francis Greenway was only ArchitecOf Hyde Park Barracks in the period between 1817-1819, he was ArchitecOf other places at other times, and the Barracks could have had other architects.  His concept of factoids is one that maps well with the ones espoused in the Semantic Web - I like the word as well.

Other presentations, including some great overviews of what the NLA itself is up to, made for a great day which was well appreciated by the 300 folks that attended.

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DLF Executive Director, Peter Brantley has published a document laying out ILS Basic Discovery API principles. 

In the summer of 2007, the Digital Library Federation (DLF) convened a working group, the ILS Discovery Interface Task Force, to analyze the issues involved in achieving effective interoperation between traditional integrated library systems (ILS’s) and internet discovery applications, and to work towards a technical proposal as a solution.

Below is a document (aka the "Berkeley Accord") that the ILS Discovery Task Force adopted in concert with the undersigned vendors as a statement in support of achieving functional integration of discovery and data.

ILS Basic Discovery Interfaces: A proposal for the ILS community.

On March 6, representatives of the Digital Library Federation (DLF), academic libraries, and major library application vendors met in Berkeley, California to discuss a draft recommendation from the DLF for standard interfaces for integrating the data and services of the Integrated Library System (ILS) with new applications supporting user discovery. Such standard interfaces will allow libraries to deploy new discovery services to meet ever-growing user expectations in the Web 2.0 era, take full advantage of advanced ILS data management and services, and encourage a strong, innovative community and marketplace in next-generation library management and discovery applications.

At the meeting, participants agreed to support a set of essential functions through open protocols and technologies by deploying specific recommended standards.

These functions are:

1. Harvesting. Functions to harvest data records for library collections, both in full, and incrementally based on recent changes. Harvesting options could include either the core bibliographic records, or those records combined with supplementary information (such as holdings or summary circulation data). Both full and differential harvesting options are expected to be supported through an OAI-PMH interface.

2. Availability. Real-time querying of the availability of a bibliographic (or circulating) item. This functionality will be implemented through a simple REST interface to be specified by the ILS-DI task group.

3. Linking. Linking in a stable manner to any item in an OPAC in a way that allows services to be invoked on it; for example, by a stable link to a page displaying the item’s catalog record and providing links for requests for that item. This functionality will be implemented through a URL template defined for the OPAC as specified by the ILS-DI task group.

Next steps:

The DLF ILS-Discovery Interface (ILS-DI) committee will prepare a recommendation with a new interoperability profile, "ILS Basic Discovery Interfaces" or "ILS-BDI", that includes the functions above, along with specifications of the proposed technologies (or "bindings", in the language of the recommendation).

ILS and application developers and vendors will support the ILS-BDI using the recommended bindings in future products.

The DLF will publicize these recommendations, and encourage further enhancements and cooperation between libraries, vendors, and applications developers in building more advanced, interoperable architectures for bibliographic discovery and use.

We are all committed to providing the best library services for research and learning. The agreement we are making now is an important step in advancing these services for the library users of today and tomorrow.

- Digital Library Federation, March 2008

Undersigned by:

1. Talis
2. Ex Libris
3. LibLime
4. BiblioCommons
5. SirsiDynix
6. Polaris Library Systems
7. VTLS
8. California Digital Library
9. OCLC
10. AquaBrowser

Abstention:

           Innovative Interfaces, Inc.

An agreement to support standardised API definition from this wide group is a significant step forward in an area where libraries have been pushing for movement for a long time. 

The DLF must be congratulated for driving this initiative forward thus far.  Let’s hope this atmosphere of open agreement continues through the ILS-BDI into actual developments and availability of APIs that libraries can use on their systems.

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Do a search for Talis on Google Australia and intermixed with results about a certain Semantic Web, Library Platform, and Library System company, you get several for TALIS - the Tasmanian Library and Information System.

Based in Hobart and developed and run by the Tasmanian State Library, TALIS runs the library system for the State, the local, and the school libraries.  The most obvious aspect of their system being their OPAC. This, separate from the [Geac - soon to be SirsiDynix] underlying ILS/LMS (or ILMS as they call them in Australia) is based on the Verity text search engine.  Featuring faceted browsing, it predates the things like VuFind, and Aquabrowser that made this kind of thing fashionable.

Being in Australia I couldn’t pass up a chance to visit them in Hobart. I received a warm welcome from some 50 folks from the State and University libraries, who I treated to the latest Semantic Web in libraries presentation.  Sometimes you wonder if you are being a bit far out, delivering such a message to a group of [just getting to grips with Web 2.0] librarians - no danger of that in the Tasmanian State Library.

Both from questions in the presentation and in meetings afterwards, it was obvious that they are not resting on their laurels - keep any eye on the folks from Tasmania.

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I have just completed the first of a series of presentations in Cities in Australia. This first one was at the State Library of Western Australia, in Perth, where I spoke about what comes after Web 2.0 - the Semantic Web - and what this will mean for the way libraries operate and share and utilise information in the future. A copy of my presentation is available here [pdf 52Mb].

After an enjoyable trip down to Australia with a great stop over day in Dubai (see personal blog post), I was welcomed in to Perth by that well known library blogger Kathryn Greenhill and her family. If you are ever in Perth and want a tour of the area, I can recommend looking Kathryn up - her family were so welcoming.

Yesterday I met with some interesting people at Curtin University of Technology, and my all to short stay in Perth culminated in the presentation at the State Library followed by a meal in an excellent local India restaurant.

An early morning flight tomorrow takes me on to Melbourne, for a further couple of seminars, organised in association with Caval, who also were responsible for organising the one in Perth. Then Hobart, Tasmania, is my destination to meet with people from the other TALIS.

The end of my trip will be in Canberra for the National Library of Australia’s Innovative Ideas Forum, but more of that in future posts.

Technorati Tags: Perth, Web 2.0, Australia, Library, Talis

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In our latest podcast I talk with Larry Johnson, Alan Levine and Rachel Smith of the New Media Consortium. We discuss the 2008 edition of their Horizon Report, exploring both their methods and the wide-ranging implications for Higher Education of their findings.

 

 Standard Podcast [61:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;

• Delphi method
• Doodle
• Gartner
• Horizon.museum
• The Horizon Report, 2008
• Horizon Project wiki
• New Media Consortium
• NMC Symposium on Mashups, April 1-3 2008.
• Ning
• Pachyderm
• xobni

This conversation was conducted using Skype on Wednesday 26 March, recorded with Ecamm Network’s Call Recorder for Skype, and edited on a Mac with Garageband.

Technorati Tags: New Media Consortium, Horizon Report 2008, Semantic Web, Talis, Talking with Talis

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The guest for this Talking with Talis Podcast is Fiona Bradley, Australian Librarian working for IFLA in the Netherlands.

Fiona Launched the blog Semantic Library, to help her find out more about the Semantic Web. We discuss what she has discovered from the blog and the relevance of the Semantic Web to libraries.

 

 Standard Podcast [31:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

During the conversation we mention:

• The Talis Semantic Web blog - Nodalities
• Paul Miller’s blog The Semantic Web
• John Blyberg’s presentation - Beyond the OPAC: The Semantic Web [pdf]
• Read Write Web
• Web Worker Daily
• Mashable

This conversation was conducted as a Skype call on Wednesday 12th March 2008, recorded with Ecamm Network’s Call Recorder for Skype, and edited on a Mac with Garageband.

Technorati Tags: Fiona Bradley, Semantic Web, Semantic, Library, Talis, IFLA, Podcast, Talking with Talis

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The National Library of Australia Library Labs has recently launched a Wiki to keep folks up to date with, and engaged with their developments.

Ever since I came across, what I call their kitchen sink demonstration OPAC (they have put practically everything except the kitchen sink, in to related information around the results) I have been impressed with what they are up to.

The Wiki, has an Our Prototypes page upon which can be found links to, and descriptions of, three prototype interfaces: The NBD Prototype - the official name for demonstrator I mentioned; The Beta Catalogue - a VuFind fronted re-engineering of the National Library’s catalogue; The Single Business Prototype - a proof of concept for providing a single discovery interface to all the library’s current and future discovery services.  The page also gives a heads up that a Newspaper Search and Delivery Service is on its way.

The home page of the Wiki proclaims:

We are particularly interested in forming a community of Australian business analysts and developers who are working on similar problems and who are interested in  interoperable, standards-based solutions that can foster the development of a national information infrastructure. We are also interested in working with colleagues at an international level to provide prototypes and testbeds for new and emerging standards.

An also:

At the National Library of Australia we have started to redevelop our digital library services using a service-oriented architecture and open source software solutions where these are functional and robust.

Putting these two together it is good to see the promotion of open standards and open software both within and outside of Australia.

This picks up on the themes from last month’s Code4lib 2008 conference, as described by Rob.  It is time we all started to cooperate around the innovative work going on globally.

Technorati Tags: NLA, Library Labs, Talis, Library, Open Source

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In co-operation with Library Journal The Library 2.0 Gang is returning to a podcast player near you.

As hinted at earlier this month, the Gang is to be convened on a monthly basis to discuss the topics of the day.

For each show I will be joined by several contributors drawn from a pool of regulars from the world of libraries and the technologies that influence them.

The first show in the new series is a great example of the type of interesting and informative discussion you can expect from The Library 2.0 Gang.   It takes its inspiration from the themes that emerged from the Code4lib 2008 conference in Portland, last month.  The subjects covered being the Open Library, ILS APIs, and new Cataloguing Influences.   The gang of regulars John Blyberg, Nicole C. Engard, Carl Grant, Char Booth, and Rob Stlyes were joined by our guest for the month Aaron Swartz of The Open Library.

Get your self across to The Library 2.0 Gang site, or to LibraryJournal.com, through where it is being syndicated, and have a listen.

As I say in the show, I am interested in your input for topics, questions, guests, and even regular contributors for the gang.  Droop me an email to librarygang@talis.com - I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Library 2.0 Gang, L2G, Talis, Library, Open Library, LibraryJournal, Podcast

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I wrote a while back about the WoGroFuBiCo report from LC, and then again a few days later about Karen Calhoun’s Response to WoGroFuBiCo.

Thanks to Karen Schneider twittering about Mann’s Opus, I picked up Thomas Mann’s response to the report.

Thomas’ response is entitled "On the Record" but Off the Track: A Review of the Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on The Future of Bibliographic Control, With a Further Examination of Library of Congress Cataloguing Tendencies

Mann starts his response with a section of major points, starting with the statement that:

The Working Group’s Report is off the track in many of its major assumptions, assertions, and recommendations

That’s a pretty strong statement, and what follows in 38 pages would do even Annoyed Librarian proud.

Over on Cataloguing Futures, Christine Schwartz describes the report as a must-read, Karen Schneider comments

How could I *not* love this report?

arkham sums up my feelings better, commenting

First, I ended up skipping a large amount of it, when it became abundantly clear that the majority of the paper is a long rant (and lecture) on how important LCSH and LCSH left-anchored browse are and how they work - and don’t work in an Amazoogle environment.

And this ranting style is what I struggle with most about the points, I agree with much of the sentiment, and having spoken to several folks at LC I think the WoGroFuBiCo do too.

The WoGroFuBiCo report treats much of what Mann deems important with a light touch not because it is unimportant, but because the library world has been doing stuff well for many, many years. The things it focuses on, moving onto the web more wholly and in a more embracing way.

WoGroFuBiCo is about stepping out into the world once more, not abandoning everything we hold dear.

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