Subject: [CODE4LIB] mailing list home page

From: Eric Lease Morgan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:39:40 -0400

I have resurrected a home page for our mailing list. See:

   http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mailing-lists/code4lib/

No great shakes. Just providing some simple instructions. FYI.

BTW, there are about 1,300 of us.

-- 
Eric Morgan
University of Notre Dame

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From: Michael Beccaria <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:13:04 -0400

I was intrigued by someone who posted to the Worldcat Developers Network
forum. They were asking about the xISSN service and having it return
whether an ISSN is peer reviewed or not. Which got me thinking...Has
anyone been able to finagle a feature into their SerialsSolutions A-Z
list where it shows peer reviewed status for the titles that are
returned using a WC service? SS has limited editing capabilities on
their page so the javascript question is this:

Is it possible when being able to edit ONLY the header to alter span
tags of a loaded web page using javascript? Can I insert some javascript
in those sections that will scrape the ISSN number from these span tags
and add some dynamic content from a web service using javascript alone?

I'm not very proficient at javascript so be gentle.

Mike Beccaria
Systems Librarian
Head of Digital Initiatives
Paul Smith's College
518.327.6376

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From: Michael Beccaria <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:49:23 -0400

I should clarify. The most granular piece of information in the html is
a "class" attribute (i.e. there is no "id"). Here is a snippet:

<div class="SS_Holding" style="background-color: #CECECE">
<!-- Journal Information -->
<span class="SS_JournalTitle"><strong>Annals of forest
science.</strong></span>&nbsp;<span
class="SS_JournalISSN">(1286-4560)</span>

I want to alter the "<span class="SS_JournalISSN">(1286-4560)</span>"
section. Maybe add some html after the issn that tells whether it is
peer reviewed or not.

Mike Beccaria
Systems Librarian

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Michael Beccaria
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:13 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] SerialsSolutions Javascript Question

Mike Beccaria
Systems Librarian

---

From: Godmar Back <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:09:53 -0400

> section. Maybe add some html after the issn that tells whether it is
Yes - you'd write code similar to this one:

$(document).ready(function () {
   $("SS_JournalISSN").each(function () {
       var issn = $(this).text().replace(/[^\dxX]/g, "");
       var self = this;
       $.getJSON("http:.... xissn.oclc.....issn=" + issn +
"....&format=json&callback=.", function (data) {
             $(self).append( .... data ... [ 'is peer reviewed' ] );
       });
   });
});

 - Godmar

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From: David Kane <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:31:22 +0000

Hi Folks,

I was wondering if anyone was aware of semantic web technologies being
used in the context of libraries and library search?

I know that Talis are active in this area.  Does anyone have links to
any specific resources or projects that they know of in this area?

Thanks,

David.

-- 
David Kane
Systems Librarian
Waterford Institute of Technology
Ireland
http://library.wit.ie/
[email-masked]
T: ++353.51302838
M: ++353.876693212

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From: Roy Tennant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:16:00 -0700

David,
Could you elaborate a bit? In my mind, the only "semantic web technology" of
any note is "linked data". How that fits into "library search" is anyone's
guess, and I'm wondering what, specifically, you're referring to when you
say that Talis is active in this area.

If you are asking about library linked data, then there are several
examples, most notably the Library of Congress[1], the Swedish Union
Catalogue [2], and OCLC[3][4]. I believe that a minimum both the Library of
Congress and OCLC plan on releasing more linked data sets.

So can you elaborate a bit more on what, exactly, you're seeking? Thanks,
Roy 

[1] http://id.loc.gov/authorities/
[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.culture.libraries.ngc4lib/4617
[3] http://dewey.info/
[4] http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2009/09/viaf-as-linked-data.html

---

From: Alexander Johannesen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:47:48 +1100

Hiya,

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 15:16, Roy Tennant <[email-masked]> wrote:
> any note is "linked data".

What do you mean by linked data? I work in fields of semantic web
technology where there's very little linked data (ie. data on the web
you can link to and use), yet I feel all our work is very valuable and
certainly worthy of note ...

Regards,

Alex
-- 
 Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
--- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ----------------------------------------------
------------------ http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---

---

From: stuart yeates <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:19:46 +1300

> certainly worthy of note ...

I'm guessing that Roy meant linked data in the sense of 
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html and http://linkeddata.org/

The classic linkeddata.org diagram includes PubMed, Project Gutenberg, 
PubChem, several forks(?) of DBLP and eprints, all of which I recognise 
as library-related (or at least collections-of-bibliographic-content 
related, depending on where one draws lines).

cheers
stuart
-- 
Stuart Yeates
http://www.nzetc.org/       New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/     Institutional Repository

---

From: Alexander Johannesen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:24:40 +1100

Hiya,

> http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html and http://linkeddata.org/

I'm pretty sure he did, too. I guess I was trying to smoke out his
reasoning for choosing "linked data" as the only worthwhile semantic
web technology. Let me clarify, and have a look at this ;

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web_Stack

Linked data is the bottom four boxes out of a total of 12 (13 if you
count the top one), where the ones missing is things like Trust,
Proof, Logic, Querying, Ontologies and Taxonomies, all things that I
thought it was evident belonged at the core of what library science is
all about. It simply astounds me the lack of understanding from the
library world on these things, so sad to see that these things aren't
linked up; you *are* what these things are about! Sure, linked data is
easier; that's why everyone is doing it, have been doing it for years.
But you're missing out in fields that should be second-nature to you.

Regards,

Alex
--- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ----------------------------------------------
------------------ http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---

---

From: Joe Hourcle <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:15:21 -0400

> [4] http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2009/09/viaf-as-linked-data.html

For some other information on what other groups are doing in this regard, 
the DCMI (Dublin Core) just had a meeting in Korea two weeks ago, with the 
theme "Semantic Interoperability of Linked Data"

 	http://www.dc2009.kr/

And there was a CENDI/NKOS workshop that I attended last week, that 
featured many of the same speakers.

 	http://nkos.slis.kent.edu/2009workshop/NKOS-CENDI2009.htm

Both sites have presentations linked from their sites.  I can forward on 
my notes from the CENDI/NKOS workshop, but I'll warn you in advance that I 
wrote them for a different intended audience (folks on an interoperability 
project that I'm attached to), so I might've trimmed some stuff that's of 
general interest to folks in libraries, while bringing out stuff that 
isn't.

The CENDI folks are all US Government, but there seems to be a wider range 
of people in NKOS.  I don't know how much of it fits into the typical 
'library' definition, other than the Library of Congress stuff that was 
already mentioned.

-Joe

---

From: "O.Stephens" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:02:18 +0000

> Could you elaborate a bit? In my mind, the only "semantic web
> technology" of any note is "linked data". How that fits into
> "library search" is anyone's guess, and I'm wondering what,
> specifically, you're referring to when you say that Talis is
> active in this area.

I'm sure there are some Talis people out there who could give a fuller run down of what the company are doing in this area, but as examples:

Developing and supporting RDF Triple store technology (aka 'The Platform')
Exposing "reading list" information as RDF via their Aspire product
Contributing to relevant Ontologies - including discussions of/contributions to BIBO, resourcelist and AIISO ontologies
The http://semanticlibrary.org/ demonstrator of use of RDF/Semantic tech/Linked data for library data

Roy has already noted the excellent work happening at the LoC (the Chronicling America as Linked data http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/api/ as well as the LCSH mentioned), Libris (Swedish Union cat) and OCLC. The work being done to develop an RDA ontology (http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/1.html) is probably worth a mention, as is the work being done on a Zotero->Bibo mapping https://www.zotero.org/trac/wiki/BiboMapping

The BRII project at Oxford http://brii-oxford.blogspot.com/ (not quite library specific, but relevant) might also be of interest.

So, there is quite a bit going on at the moment in this area. The question of 'library search' I think can be seen at several levels - since we have library data expressed as RDF and examples of this being searched, I guess we can say that examples of library search based on semantic web technologies exist. What I think we are missing is anything 'web scale' (I'd be very happy to be corrected on this if there are good examples!). In a recent blog post Alex describes how linked data might be used in a library context (http://shelter.nu/blog/2009/10/on-identity.html), including a nice (I think) idea of what cataloguing might look like. This type of approach would allow us to take advantage of the data being exposed by VIAF/id.loc.gov etc. and start to create links between our systems - which I where I see the real interesting possibilities starting to emerge.

Finally, probably also worth mentioning that both Yahoo and Google are (I believe) using RDFa embedded in HTML pages - which also points to some interesting possibilities for search - and libraries if we expose our data in this format.

Owen

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

---

From: Karen Coyle <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:49:25 -0700

I haven't seen a friendly use of SPARQL (or search in general), and  
would love to see one -- especially one that combined library data and  
any other data set (geographic, whatever). It does seem to me that the  
search aspect of SemWeb is still a bit weak. In my imagination, it  
allows me to do the kinds of things I can do with Yahoo Pipes, which  
is to mash-up data from various sources and then do something  
interesting with it. My usual example (heck, my only example) is to  
answer the question: What's the earliest edition of [book title]? A  
simpler one would be: Who wrote [book title]? What I want is to get an  
answer, not a gazillion bibliographic records.

kc

-- 
Karen Coyle
[email-masked] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

---

From: Richard Wallis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:02:24 +0000

On 29 Oct 2009, at 11:02, O.Stephens wrote:

> I'm sure there are some Talis people out there who could give a  
> fuller run down of what the company are doing in this area, but as  
> examples:
>
> Contributing to relevant Ontologies - including discussions of/ 
> contributions to BIBO, resourcelist and AIISO ontologies

Well done Owen you saved me a few keystrokes there.

I would add to your list that the Software-as-a-Service semantic  
Platform [http://www.talis.com/platform] underpins the Talis Prism  
OPAC, Talis Aspire resource list system, and Talis Engage community  
information system.  All three providing live services for large  
public and academic libraries, demonstrating that these technologies  
can be robust, scalable and reliable.

Although not library focussed uses of the Platform, it is also being  
used to drive innovation by the BBC and data.gov.uk, in providing  
SPARQL query end-points on to publicly available data in RDF form.

There has been a recent thread on the NGC4LIB list, stimulated by an  
interview with Tim Berners-Lee [http://fora.tv/2009/10/08/Next_Decade_Technologies_Changing_the_World-Tim-Berners-Lee 
], that covers much around semantic web and libraries.  As is often  
the case on that list, the thread wanders far and wide (with the  
almost obligatory stop off in FRBR-land).  I have put together some of  
my thoughts from the issues raised by it, in a recent blog post "Will  
Linked Data mean an early end for Marc & RDA" [http://tinyurl.com/ykrnjph 
]

~Richard
 
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From: Tom Pasley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:56:33 +1300

Hi David,

If you're wanting specific Talis stuff, have a look at:

http://dataincubator.org
http://n2.talis.com
http://code.google.com/p/moriarty/

There's also OpenLink which have Virtuoso:
http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/

And things like:
Triplify
Arc

cheers,

Tom

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From: "O.Stephens" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:54:30 +0000

Tom's mention of triplify has reminded me that in the UK Joss Winn has been trying to get a Scriblio+Wordpress+Triplify project off the ground - see http://joss.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/10/04/open-education-talis-incubator-proposal/.

Owen

Owen Stephens
TELSTAR Project Manager
Library and Learning Resources Centre
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA

T: +44 (0) 1908 858701
F: +44 (0) 1908 653571
E: [email-masked]

> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of Tom Pasley
> Sent: 29 October 2009 19:57
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] SerialsSolutions Javascript Question
>
> Hi David,
>

---

From: Cary Gordon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:05:24 -0700

You might want to take a look at jQuery, a JavaScript library that has
very nice routines for navigating the DOM tree. An simple example
would be finding text in a table cell which triggers setting a class
for the table row.

-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com

---

From: Ross Singer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:34:23 -0400

David,

A few other projects that are treading into this territory are
the Library of Congress' Chronicling America:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email-masked]/msg02407.html

Kochief:
http://code.google.com/p/kochief/

And I've been doing some work (although very early stages, yet) with
Blacklight running off of the Talis Platform:

http://blacklite.heroku.com/

which will eventually pull in the Umlaut
(http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Umlaut) to provide a bridge
between OpenURL and linked data.

It's pretty early going in this arena, however.

-Ross.