All,
Here is a very interesting interview with Tim Berners-Lee, who talks about
the Semantic web.
http://fora.tv/2009/10/08/Next_Decade_Technologies_Changing_the_World-Tim-Berners-Lee.
He gives some fascinating examples of the benefits of simply placing your
information on the web in whatever format you have (as he said, even just a
comma-separated value) because if people want it, they wil take it and
rework it to their own benefit.
One of the basic ideas he discusses is that, while you may work to put up a
site that works the way you want it to, that isn't what others want today.
Others want to have the same information but want to use it in other ways
that you, as the initial creator, haven't even dreamed of.
There are several consequences to the library community from his talk,
ranging from formats to sharing. I am trying to imagine how the library
catalog will fit into the scenario he describes, a scenario that is working
itself out right now. The catalog records (the actual data) are obviously of
prime importance (format as well), and while I think the catalog itself can
play a highly important role, I'm still not sure how.
I suggest it to all.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Mon Oct 19 2009 - 03:49:24 EDT