How discovery layers have closed off access to library resources, and other tales of schema.org from LITA Forum 2014

Posted on Sat 08 November 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Evergreen, Structured data, coding, evergreen, structured data

At the LITA Forum yesterday, I accused (presentation) most discovery layers of not solving the discoverability problems of libraries, but instead exacerbating them by launching us headlong to a closed, unlinkable world. Coincidentally, Lorcan Dempsey's opening keynote contained a subtle criticism of discovery layers. I wasn't that subtle.

Here's why …


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Posting on the Laurentian University library blog

Posted on Fri 18 July 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Structured data, coding, structured data

Since returning from my sabbatical, I've felt pretty strongly that one of the things our work place is lacking is open communication about the work that we do--not just outside of the library, but within the library as well. I'm convinced that the more that we know about the demands …


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Cataloguing for the open web: schema.org in library catalogues and websites

Posted on Tue 01 July 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Evergreen, Structured data, coding, evergreen, structured data

tldr; my slides are href="http://stuff.coffeecode.net/2014/understanding_schema">here, and the slides from Jenn and Jason are also available from href="http://connect.ala.org/node/222959">ALA Connect.

On Sunday, June 29th Jenn Riley, Jason Clark, and I presented at the ALCTS/LITA jointly sponsored session …


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RDFa introduction and codelabs for libraries

Posted on Fri 27 June 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Evergreen, Structured data, coding, evergreen, structured data

My RDFa introduction and codelab materials for the ALA 2014 preconference on Practical linked data with open source are now online!

And now I've finished leading the RDFa + schema.org codelab that I've been stressing over and refining for about a month at the American Library Association annual conference Practical …


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The state of structured data in Evergreen: 2.6 edition

Posted on Sat 22 March 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Evergreen, Structured data, evergreen, structured data

Yesterday at the 2014 Evergreen International Conference I presented Structured library data: holdings, libraries, and beyond--a talk about the work I've done specifically with Evergreen and making some of the connections with Koha and VuFind's capabilities. Lots of attendees seemed happy with the talk and the direction that we're …


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RDFa, schema.org, and open source library systems

Posted on Thu 20 March 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, FSOSS, Structured data, coding, fsoss, structured data

Two things of note:

  1. I recently submitted the camera-ready copy for my ESWC 2014 paper, Seeding Structured Data by Default via Open Source Library Systems (**preprint**). The paper focuses on the work I've done with Evergreen, Koha, and VuFind to use emerging web standards such as RDFa Lite and schema …

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Mapping library holdings to the Product / Offer mode in schema.org

Posted on Mon 03 February 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Evergreen, Structured data, coding, evergreen, structured data

Back in August, I mentioned that I taught Evergreen, Koha, and VuFind how to express library holdings in schema.org via the http://schema.org/Offer class. What I failed to mention was how others can do the same with their own library systems (well, okay, I linked to the …


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Broadening support for linked data in MARC

Posted on Fri 24 January 2014 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Structured data, coding, structured data

The following is an email that I sent to the MARC mailing list on January 24, 2014 that might be of interest to those looking to provide better support for linked data in MARC (hopefully as just a transitional step):


In the spirit of making it possible to express linked …


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File_MARC: 1.0.1 release fixes data corruption bug

Posted on Thu 31 October 2013 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, coding

I released File_MARC 1.0.1 yesterday after receiving a bug report from the most excellent Mark Jordan about a basic (but data corrupting) problem that had existed since the very early days (almost seven years ago). If you generate MARC binary output from File_MARC, you should upgrade immediately.

In …


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Talk proposal: Structuring library data on the web with schema.org: we're on it!

Posted on Thu 17 October 2013 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, Structured data, coding, structured data

I submitted the following proposal to the Library Technology Conference 2014 and thought it might be of general interest.

Structuring library data on the web with schema.org: we're on it!

Abstract

Until recently, there has been a disappointing level of adoption of schema.org structured data in traditional core …


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