I think that the 10 years of experience with RDF is a bit of a red-herring here. The RDF docs have changed a lot in the intervening time, and the tools for working effectively with RDF data are a lot younger. The first draft of the Concepts and Abstract Syntax doc is from 2002. The first RDF Semantics doc: 2001. These docs, and their later iterations, are where a lot of the potential lies.
More significantly, SPARQL - the RDF Query specification, was first issued less than 3 years ago. The applications Bernhard is looking for needed SPARQL to even start developing. SPARQL's absence was the missing layer in much of the SW stuff.
Additionally, the links Ross pointed to earlier represent somewhat of a change in the SW community itself - from Machine Reasoning to Linking Data. The latter is what's really relevant to our community.
Finally, in terms of scalability, this caught my eye a few weeks ago:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/04/semantic_web_breakthrough/
Answering "search queries with more than seven billion RDF statements in mere fractions of a second", this work seems to demonstrate that the technology has finally matured to the point that proof-of-concepts and demonstrated utility are ready to be developed.
-Corey
----- Original Message -----
From: Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_BIBLIO.TU-BS.DE>
Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 10:12 am
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Next Gen Catalog and FRBR
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Ross Singer wrote:
> >
> > Well, Richard's examples show the underlying RDF, but, at the end of
> > the day, it's still MARC in the background (or DC or whatever the
> > institution supplied).
> And why not RDF?
> >
> > The point, though, is the /potential/ of RDF, not the existing
> > practice in libraries.
> >
>
> Sure, and I do think I understand that much. The theory is wonderful.
> But my question was, where is it demonstrated (after 10 years) that the
> potential is more than a theoretical one? What we learn about Talis
> still doesn't make that abundantly clear. An answer would need to be
> such that it at once grips you by its crispness and clarity so you can
> have no doubt it can sweep MARC away.
> And even from there to a universally recognized and applied standard
> would still be a long way to go. Which is, however, what we need, for
> interoperability will be key.
>
> OTOH, quantum mechanics is better than Newton's mechanics although
> there's no quick and easy eye-opener for its beauty...
>
> B.Eversberg
Received on Wed May 23 2007 - 07:05:07 EDT