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Universal access to information

Semantic Web, Web services, grid computing and wireless technology

“Well, there are a lot of problems with computing today, in how many things are still very manual or very isolated. You know, if you work with multiple PCs, phones and PDAs, the way you set up even trivial things like getting the sports scores that you care about, or the messages that are important, or your address book to be consistent on every device—that’s a mess […] So, what’s the key ingredient that can solve these problems? Well, it’s largely about software breaking down boundaries. That’s why our goal is to achieve what we call ‘seamless computing’—between the structured and unstructured processes, between the devices, between the organizations.”19

In common with other communities, the library community initially developed a range of domain-specific approaches. Also in common with other communities it is examining those approaches in the light of wider developments. Four are of special interest: the Semantic Web and Web services from the World Wide Web Consortium, grid computing and Wi-Fi. All of these, in one sense or another, attempt to address the less-than-seamless Internet-accessible world.

• Semantic Web. The objective of the semantic Web is to provide structure in Web documents, so that machines can process them in the way that people currently read them. So, at its core, the Semantic Web is about promoting languages for exchanging data and describing its meaning. Interoperability is enabled within a community, which uses a shared “ontology” of terms. The general standard for data is the XML-based Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the upcoming Web Ontology Language (OWL).

  The Semantic Web has yet to find convincing demonstrators, but may be important in niche applications. It is still largely theoretical. There is one area in which it is potentially important and this is in the area of terminology services. We are likely to see more vocabularies made available as network services. An example would be a network-accessible version of Dewey®, which could be queried, navigated and so on, by remote protocols. Work is underway on such applications, and there may be points of contact between these and the Semantic Web.

• Web services. Web services are of major significance for the library community and for applications builders in general. In brief, they allow lightweight applications to be defined, which leverages the existing infrastructure of the Web: they provide potentially low-barrier implementation routes for distributed services. Web services are modular applications available on the Web. They may be recombined to provide other services. Google and Amazon make interfaces available as Web services so that others can more easily build them into their applications. The Web services approach has wide uptake in industry. SRW/SRU protocols discussed above are rewrites of Z39.50 as Web services. OAI-PMH and OpenURLs are implemented as Web services. They are built on top of the Web, using basic Web protocols and XML.

• Grid computing. Grid computing (www.gridcomputing.com) promotes the development and advancement of technologies that provide seamless and scalable access to wide-area distributed resources. Computational grids enable the selection and sharing of geographically distributed computational resources. This idea is analogous to the electrical power grid, where power generators are distributed, but the users are able to access electric power without bothering about the source of energy and its location. The idea has become popular in a variety of academic research environments, including computer science, molecular modeling and drug design, biophysics and high-energy physics, and has been extended by IBM and others into business settings. The promise of grid computing—of Web-based services providing universal access to information and computing in a collaborative environment—is as real as it is seductive.20
• Wireless technology. Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) refers to wireless local area networks that use one of several standards in the same “family”—the 802.11 standards. The wireless networks send and receive data to and from laptops and handheld devices such as cell phones, PDAs and the cell phone/PDA hybrids like the Treo. The resulting nomadic computing environment allows for flexibility, unencumbered by the need to locate wall plugs and hardwired computers. Many libraries are using Wi-Fi to deliver library content to users. Medical and health sciences libraries in particular are developing pathfinders and library information that can be downloaded to portable devices. Some libraries are using Wi-Fi and handheld devices to collect data from copiers and printing stations, for example.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is not a new wireless technology. What’s new about RFID is that it has become cheap enough for large-scale deployment. Wal-Mart made the news this past year when they announced that they would require their 100 top suppliers to put RFID tags on pallets and cases of goods destined for Wal-Mart stores. Quite a few libraries have implemented RFID systems as a tool to help track materials, stop theft and check out and return books more rapidly. In a sense, RFID is the technological child of bar codes. The big difference between the bar codes and RFID tags are that bar codes have to be “seen” by a scanner and RFID tags can be read as long as they are within range of a reader. The difference to a library user may be the difference between standing in line waiting for access to a bar code scanner and having material checked out merely by entering the circulation area. One reason libraries have been slowly adopting RFID technology is cost, but as is always the case with technology, this inhibitor will eventually vanish. A more serious inhibitor is the concern many librarians have (and they have company in the Electronic Frontier Foundation) about the collection of data and individuals’ privacy rights.

A ‘Webby world’

The library world has been supported by some venerable applications: the MARC format, Z39.50 and others.

We have already discussed how new protocols are being developed in a Web services idiom. At the same time, metadata schema is being defined in an XML context.

Over the next few years, it is likely that most new protocol development will be in a Web services context. Modular applications will be quickly developed that advertise their interfaces for use by others.

Metadata and content standards will continue within a framework established by XML and the XML family of standards.

These developments will make library applications less specialized and domain-specific.

“I suppose you can say, ‘Haven’t we heard all this before? Didn’t somebody talk about the digital convergence ten years ago? Didn’t John Von Neumann have something to say about that in 1943?’ Well, yes, but it has taken this long for a reason: It’s hard.”21

Here we chart the array of projects, technologies, standards and metadata initiatives, which are part of the library applications environment.

Libraries are used to handling semantically dense, richly structured data. A major challenge will be to handle more unstructured data. Libraries need to find ways of leveraging their investment in structured approaches in relation to large amounts of unstructured materials on the Web that are being generated by research and learning activities.

Library Landscape: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15