Semantic Future for Libraries – Martin Malmsten Talks with Talis

Originally posted on August 19, 2008 in the Talis Panlibus blog.

Martin Malmsten is from the LIBRIS department of the Royal Library of Sweden – LIBRIS being the discovery interface for the library.

Since joining as a software developer has been absorbed in to the world of library search and discovery. He played a major part in the build and launch of the latest LIBRIS search interface which has introduced under the surface some Semantic Web and Linked Data features.

We discuss his career, the use of User Centered Design & Iterative Development methodologies, the Semantic Web techniques and technologies he used, and their future applicability to the library domain.

Items discussed in our conversation:

• LIBRIS
• User-centered design and the next generation OPAC – a perfect match?
• RDF / Linked Data representations of cataloged data via LIBRIS:
  • URI for the Royal Library - http://libris.kb.se/resource/library/S
  • URI for the subject heading "Mödrar" (Mothers in English) - http://libris.kb.se/resource/auth/154863
  • URI for August Strindberg - http://libris.kb.se/resource/auth/94541
  • URI for the book "The difference Engine" - http://libris.kb.se/resource/bib/5060570
  • The book "The difference Engine" in OpenLink RDF browser - http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/rdfbrowser/index.html?uri=http%3A%2F%2Flibris.kb.se%2Fresource%2Fbib%2F5060570
• Cool URIs for the Semantic Web

Jonathan Gorman Talks with Talis

Originally posted on July 18, 2008 in the Talis Panlibus blog.

In this Talking with Talis podcast I am in conversation with Jonathan Gorman from the University of Illinois.

Jon can often be found on the code4lib IRC channel discussing many aspects of innovation with the community of library software developers and enthusiasts.

In our conversation we discuss his career and some of the tasks and projects he is involved with. Mentioned in our discussion is Jon’s article for Code4lib Journal about using Authority data in VuFind.

ALA LITA Ultimate Debate :: There’s No Catalog like No Catalog

Thanks to the Internet Resources and Services Interest Group (IRSIG), there was another Ultimate Debate panel at ALA Annual 2008. The title this year was “There’s No Catalog like No Catalog”, and a full recording of the debate was podcast on the LITABlog. Panelists included Stephen Abram, Joe Janes, Karen Coyle, and Karen Schneider.

Podcast originally posted on July 5, 2008. [MP3 file: 105:47]
See also Roy Tennant's three summaries in Library Journal: [1], [2], [3]

Talking With Talis :: Diane Hillmann talks about metadata and standards

In this Talking with Talis podcast, Paul Miller talks with Diane Hillmann of Cornell University.

Diane has been associated with library metadata standards, such as Dublin Core and RDA for many years. We discuss these and other standards and the recent meeting, held at the British Library which recommended the bringing together of work on RDA and DCMI. We also go on to discuss the work of the National Science Digital Library Metadata Registry, RDF and how the Semantic Web will influence library metadata and the way it is produced and shared.

Download MP3 [56 mins, 39Mb]

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources:

• Resource Description and Access (RDA), Karen Coyle & Diane Hillmann - D-Lib Magazine
• NGC4LIB mailing list
• Futurelib Wiki
• The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

Talking with Talis :: Bess Sadler talks about eIFL and Library-in-a-box

Originally posted by Talking with Talis on April 25, 2007.

In our latest Talking with Talis podcast, I talk with Bess Sadler of the The University of Virginia Library, about her involvement with eIFL and the Library-in-a-box project.

Library-in-a-box is the first project of the Free and Open Source Software division of eIFL. It seeks to enable the development and use of Open Source Library Systems in developing and transition countries.
Listen Now | Download MP3 [36 mins, 25Mb]

During the conversation, we refer to the following resources:

• The University of Virginia Library
• eIFL.net
• eIFL-FOSS
• Open Society Institute & Soros Foundations Network
• Tactical Technology Collective
• Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project, Karl Fogel
• Koha Open Source ILS
• Evergreen Open Source ILS

Code4Lib 2007 :: Bess Sadler and Tigran Zargaryan - Library-in-a-Box

Presentation by Bess Sadler and Tigran Zargaryan at Code4Lib 2007 in Athens, GA on March 1, 2007.

Libraries in developing countries have difficulty implementing and supporting commercial ILS systems. Poor support for internationalized interfaces and expensive software licensing fees contribute to an increasingly unsupportable situation in libraries around the world. Electronic Information for Libraries is currently planning the development of "Library-in-a-Box," an open-source, fully internationalized integrated library system, designed to be easy to install and support, and with next-generation OPAC features like faceted browsing. Library-in-a-box will build on the work already done by evergreen and koha. This talk will discuss the current state and future plans of this project.

Play talk on Odeo.

Video available.

Code4Lib 2007 :: Casey Durfee - Open-Source Endeca in 250 Lines or Less

Presentation by Casey Durfee at Code4Lib 2007 in Athens, GA on March 2, 2007.

I will detail how you can create an OPAC with features comparable to Endeca or AquaBrowser's search products (faceted browsing, relevancy ranking, fuzzy searching) using the open-source Apache Solr search engine and your favorite web programming language. I will present a catalog with most of Endeca's features in 250 lines of code or less and discuss performance/scalability concerns and common pitfalls when using Solr.

Play talk on Odeo.

Video available.

Dan Chudnov :: Library Geeks 009 - eIFL-FOSS

Originally posted by Dan Chudnov on December 10, 2006.

Bess Sadler, Erik Hatcher, and Art Rhyno joined me to discuss the recent eIFL-FOSS meeting they attended in Cupramontana, Italy. Bess, Erik, and Art have each done fascinating work in the past and are involved in many exciting projects today. We discussed many of these and how they led to their respective involvement in eIFL, and what the goals and next projects for eIFL-FOSS will be.

Bess also interviewed many other meeting attendees, and those interviews are included as well. I hope you'll agree that hearing straight from this diverse, dispersed community of library supporters is a unique opportunity to get a sense of both the scale of work that needs to be done to improve libraries everywhere, and of the enormous opportunities available to us now.

Show notes include:

• Visit the eIFL home page
• NGO-in-a-box
• Erik's books on Amazon.com
• Art's book on Amazon.com
• See Collex in action and visit the Collex blog
• Read up on Solr
• Attend the Solr workshop/preconference at code4lib 2007

Jon Udell :: A conversation with Ed Vielmetti and John Blyberg about superpatrons and superlibrarians

Originally posted by Jon Udell on February 2, 2007.

Last fall, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I gave a talk entitled Superpatrons and Superlibrarians. Joining me for this week’s podcast are the two guys who inspired that talk. The superpatron is Ed Vielmetti, an old Internet hand who likes to mash up the services proviced by the Ann Arbor District Library. That’s possible because superlibrarian John Blyberg, who works at the AADL, has reconfigured his library’s online catalog system, adding RSS feeds and a full-blown API he calls PatREST.

I’ve written from time to time about Eric von Hippel’s notion of user innovation toolkits and the synergistic relationship between users and developers that can develop around such toolkits. What Ed Vielmetti and John Blyberg are doing with Ann Arbor District Library is a great example of how that relationship can work.

Update: I meant to call out some of the excellent work that John’s been doing lately. This catalog record is an example of an Amazon-like recommendation feature: “Users who checked out this item also checked out these library items…” Nice!

You’ve also gotta love the experimental card catalog images.