How Much to Semanticize? Looking at the future of Library Data and the Semantic Web
- 1. Jenn Riley Metadata Librarian Indiana University Digital Library Program
- 2. “The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well- defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” Berners-Lee, Tim, James Hendler and Ora Lassila. (May 2001). “The Semantic Web.” Scientific American 284(5).
- 3. Subject Object Predicate URI reference URI reference literal RDF Primer http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/ URI reference
- 4. Let’s say you have these statements, all from different sources: • Dewey the dog is owned by Leslie the librarian • Leslie the librarian lives at 1234 Cutter Lane • Dogs typically live in the same home as their owners An inferencing engine can decide it’s likely that: • Dewy the dog lives at 1234 Cutter Lane
- 5. 1. Use URIs as names for things 2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names. 3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL) 4. Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things. Berners-Lee, Tim. (2006). “Linked Data Design Issues.” http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
- 7. id.loc.gov VIAF Hungarian National Library German National Library Royal Library of Sweden (at least)
- 8. DC gone off the deep end RDF-inspired include interoperability levels
- 9. Why is it so hard for library-types to wrap our brains around all of this? The underlying model of DCAM, RDF, and the Semantic Web has some significant differences from the models we’re used to.
- 11. Walsh, Norman. (2003). “RDF Twig: Accessing RDF Graphs in XSLT.” Extreme Markup Languages Conference, 4 - 8 August, 2003, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. http://nwalsh.com/docs/articles/extreme2003/
- 14. RDF Schema ≠ XML Schema
- 15. Elements aren’t properties Rdf thinks of element “vocabularies” tho libraries think of them not like cvs
- 16. Elings, Mary W., and Günter Waibel. (March 2007). “Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing Across Libraries, Archives, and Museums.” First Monday 12(3). http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1628/1543
- 17. How do you know what properties/classes have been defined so you can re-use them? Dcap’s using FRBR – no overlap v/frbr – what’s not rdf-able from xml Rda use of this stuff
- 20. So what do we do now? (Do we even need to do anything?) (Or are new and revised XML formats going to be enough?)
- 21. Balance building infrastructure with facilitating production
- 23. URIs are good Relegating information to notes comes back to bite you Libraries are already making tentative investments in this area But… • We have trouble accepting things “not invented here” • DC 1:1 principle ran into problems in practice • Systems never evolved to handle the more functional metadata structures we planned
- 24. Blacklight/VuFind/etc. • We have more control over these discovery systems than we’ve had, well, ever • They’re getting a lot of press, support, and funding • They can show off in concrete ways what’s possible if our data is in better shape ??????????????????????? RDA as Linked Data, RDF properties • This one I’m not so sure of
- 25. Can we define our models deeply enough that both graph and tree renderings are possible?
- 26. Semi-formal data dictionaries UML & other formal model representations RDF & OWL representations DCAM conformance Phase 1? Phase 2? Phase 3? Minting URIs
- 27. Dcam possible changes Participate in the dcmi discussion • Push the theory towards practice Rdf/a behind web pages – show cushman? Asho? Participate in the linking open data community project?