In 2002 -- two years before Tim O'Reilly's famous coining of the term, "Web 2.0," Katherine Adams of the Los Angeles Public Library had already argued that librarians will be an essential piece to the Semantic Web equation. In The Semantic Web: Differentiating Between Taxonomies and Ontologies, Adams makes a few strong arguments that is strikingly ahead of their time. Long before wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds had come to prominence, (5 years ago!) Adams had the foresight to point out the importance of librarians in reply to Berners-Lee et al's vision. Here are Adams main points, all of which I find fascinating based on pre-Web 2.0 knowledge:(1) Taxonomies: An Important Part of the Semantic Web - The new Web entails adding an extra layer of infrastructure to the current HTML Web - metadata in the form of vocabularies and the relationships that exist between selected terms will make this possible for machines to understand conceptual relationships as humans do.
(2) Defining Ontologies and Taxonomies - Ontologies and taxonomies are used synonymously -- Computer Scientists refer to hierarchies of structured vocabularies as "ontology" while librarians call them "taxonomy."
(3) Standardized Language and Conceptual Relationships - Both taxonomies and ontologies consist of a structured vocabulary that identifies a single key term to represent a concept that could be described using several words.
(4) Different Points of Emphasis - Computer Science is concerned with how software and associated machines interact with ontologies; librarians are concerned with how patrons retrieve information with the aid of taxonomies. However, they're essential different sides of the same coin.
(5) Topic Maps As New Web Infrastructure - Topic maps will ultimately point the way to the next stage of the Web's development. They represent a new international standard (ISO 13250). In fact, even the OCLC is looking to topic maps in its Dublin Core Initiative to organize the Web by subject.
4 comments:
Hi Allen.
I like your formulation in (5), but I would go further. What Topic Maps is really spearheading is nothing short of a paradigm shift in computing -- the notion of subject-centric computing -- which will affect far more than just the Web.
We've let programs, applications, and even documents occupy centre-stage for far too long. This is topsy-turvy: users are primarily interested in subjects (what the information is about), not how it was created or where it lives. We need to recognize this, and effect the same kind of change in information management that object-orientation effected in programming; hence the need for a subject-centric revolution.
One question: do you have a reference for the news about OCLC's research into Topic Maps that you mention? Perhaps they'd be interested in talking about it at Topic Maps 2008 (Oslo, Norway, April 2-4).
Steve
Steve,
Thank you for your comments. Good points. As for the OCLC reference, Adams (2002) article is the only one I've seen that has discussed topic maps in regards to OCLC. If you need the article, I'd be happy to provide.
(It is a fascinating read).
Allan
I have a challenge for you as a new professional librarian. How do you propose we engage our colleagues in discussing the semantic web when we are so focussed on organizing our proprietary, subscription-based content and print materials?
Is it possible to advocate for utilization of LIS principles in the semantic web context, or not?
Dean
Dean,
I don't think it's something that can be "advocated" for and pushed for as in Web 2.0-related services such as Facebook, blogs, and wikis. Web 3.0/Semantic Web is a little harder to sell because it isn't exactly "here" yet.
I propose that librarians be aware of the upcoming evolution of the Web, and play a proactive part (if they can) in being at the forefront when it does materialize.
It's not something which will happen overnight. I liken this to email. As information professionals, we've substituted the fax machine and telephone with emails for much of our communication; but it was only 10 years ago that we couldn't fathom how we'd do without them.
Ten years from now...we might be doing things fairly differently than we do now. The only difference is that this time, the tools of librarians can have the opportunity and potential to have a large say in the "new" Web.
If this isn't enough to entice librarians to at least stop and listen, then it would be unfortunate. But I am hopeful that most would? What is there to lose?
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