The Semantic Catalogue

It's important that librarians keep at the back of their minds how to integrate the Semantic Web into the catalogue, which is ultimately the bridge that users cross to access the library's resources. But it's easy to forget about it, particularly since many libraries have difficulty keeping up with Web 2.0 technologies. But regardless of how far we've come along, it's necessary to peer into the future and see what kinds of changes we'll need to embrace. It could be ten years down the road before we hit the Semantic Web . . . or five . . . or even less. Take a look at Campbell and Fast's Academic Libraries and the Semantic Web: What the Future May Hold for Research Supporting Library Catalogues. They make an excellent case for integrating existing web resources into a dynamic, information-rich, and user-centred catalogue.

Meshing services such as IMDB, Amazon, AFI's Catalogue, the authors suggest that academic libraries could use the Semantic Web as a source of rich metadata that can be retrieved and inserted into bibliographic records to enhance the user's information searches and to expand the role of the library cataloguer as a research tool rather than a mere locating device. (Something along the lines of the Pipl search engine technology). In doing so, the cataloguer acts as an information intermediary, using a combination of subject knowledge and information expertise to facilitate the growth of semantically encoded metadata. In a Web 3.0 world, the cataloguer's new responsibilities would include the following:

(1) Locate - RDF-encoded information on specific subjects, scrutinizing its reliability, and assessing its usefulness in meeting cataloguing objectives

(2) Select - RDF resources for the specific item being catalogue

(3) Participate - In markup projects within a specific knowledge domain, thus promoting the growth of open-access domain-specific metadata