Applications of XML, Semantic Web & Linked Data in Library/Information Services & Skills needed by System Librarians. H6716 (Internet & Web Technologies) & K6224 (Internet Technologies & Applications) Semester 2 – 2011/2012 Hazman Aziz, Librarian (Library Technology & Systems) Amirrudin Dahlan, Senior IT Specialist (Center for IT & Services) Nanyang Technological University

1. Applications of XML, Semantic Web & Linked Data
in Library/Information Services & Skills needed by
System Librarians.
H6716 (Internet & Web Technologies) &
K6224 (Internet Technologies & Applications)
Semester 2 – 2011/2012
Hazman Aziz, Librarian (Library Technology & Systems)
Amirrudin Dahlan, Senior IT Specialist (Center for IT & Services)
Nanyang Technological University
1

2. Introduction
On August 6th 1991, Tim Berners-Lee
(1991) described a project called the
“World Wide Web (WWW)”
that aimed to
“allow links to be made to any
information anywhere”.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee 2

3. Introduction
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOAA_Internet_example.png 3
An example of how the Internet allows near-universal connectivity.

4. Library Science
4
“… the Web was one of several network-
based systems to be pressed into service
at the same time as the Internet was
changing the rules for widespread
communications.”
Late 80s
Gopher was introduced
ANSI Standard Z39.50
Information Retrieval Service
1991
1991
Wide Area Information Servers
WAIS

5. The Telidon
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telidon 5
“… attempts to create public information
infrastructure through technologies such
as Telidon.”

6. The Web
Source: Arthur Rhyno, (2003) "From library systems to mainstream software: how Web technologies are changing the role of the systems librarian",
Library Hi Tech, Vol. 21 Iss: 3, pp.289 – 296 | DOI (Permanent URL): 10.1108/07378830310494463
6
“Yet the Web was different from
these initiatives in that it did not
stay on the fringes of the library
computing landscape for very
long.”
“… the technologies of the Web
would become far more pervasive
and central to the library’s
operations.

7. The Web in Libraries: The Beginnings
Source: Arthur Rhyno, (2003) "From library systems to mainstream software: how Web technologies are changing the role of the systems librarian",
Library Hi Tech, Vol. 21 Iss: 3, pp.289 – 296 | DOI (Permanent URL): 10.1108/07378830310494463
7
HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
… an easy way to publish a system of “links” known as
hypertext.
… links were typically to information on library hours and
services, and usually offered information on how to access
the OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue).
Figure 1: Web server uses HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) to serve HTML documents located on disk to a Web
browser

8. HTML Contents Needs To Be Dynamic
Source: Arthur Rhyno, (2003) "From library systems to mainstream software: how Web technologies are changing the role of the systems librarian",
Library Hi Tech, Vol. 21 Iss: 3, pp.289 – 296 | DOI (Permanent URL): 10.1108/07378830310494463
8
Introduction to Common Gateway Interface
CGI specification allowed external applications to be wired
into the Web
… provided an interactive experience, and just as
importantly, opened the door to plugging in applications
that predated the Web.
Figure 2: An application is made available
through CGI to any Web browser
Two of the earliest library-related CGI programs were
CNIDR’s Z39.50 Gateway (Zgate)
and an interface called
“WebCat”
from the University of Waterloo that provided a Web layer
for the library’s GEAC system

9. Integrated Library System
Source: http://www.mayo.edu/library/information-systems.html 9

10. 10

11. Linking, Stability and Convenience
Source: http://www.mayo.edu/library/information-systems.html 11
Linking issues for libraries tend to fall into two
major areas,:
1. authentication, i.e. verifying
the user’s digital identity so
that they can be given access,
and
2. redirection or link resolving,
where a mechanism is put in
place to ensure that users are
matched to the resources that
are appropriate to the context
of the link itself.

12. The Importance of XML
Source: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/moen_paper.html 12
Every substantive Web initiative
is now expected
to demonstrate its relationship
to XML
and the library community has
utilized or is investigating
XML for many of its data
formats, including MARC and
other forms of metadata,
as well as using it for passing
information back and forth for
protocols such as Z39.50 and
NCIP.

13. The Importance of XML
Source: http://infomotions.com/musings/mylibrary-framework/ 13
XML is also an important
enabling technology for sharing
library information with other
applications
… pass circulation information
into a patron’s calendaring
system, for example,
XML is most likely to be the
exchange format to make this
happen.

14. XML Technologies of Interest
Source: http://infomotions.com/musings/mylibrary-framework/ 14
In Systems Librarians’ Daily Work

15. Example: NTU Digital Repository
Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-guide2versioning/ 15
DSpace is the software of choice for academic, non-
profit, and commercial organizations building open
digital repositories.

16. 16

17. 17

18. 18

19. Example: Blogs @ NTU (WordPress)
Source:http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Support , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC , http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_wp 19
WordPress is web software you can use to create a
beautiful website, blog a multi-blog platform
XML-RPC Support
WordPress uses an XML-RPC interface. We currently
support the Blogger API, metaWeblog API, and
the Movable Type API.
It's a spec and a set of implementations that allow
software running on disparate operating systems,
running in different environments to make procedure
calls over the Internet.
It's remote procedure calling using HTTP as the
transport and XML as the encoding. XML-RPC is
designed to be as simple as possible, while allowing
complex data structures to be transmitted, processed
and returned.

20. Example: Blogs @ NTU (WordPress)
Source:http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Support , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC , http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_wp 20
Defining the WordPress API to match
with the other Blog providers
Pull and write into the
WordPress Database.

21. Example: Blogs @ NTU (WordPress)
Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-guide2versioning/ 21
An XML sitemap is a must for your
Blogs @ NTU
XML is the format that Google, Yahoo and Bing
wants us to submit our Sitemaps to them so
they can crawl the deeper pages of our blog.

22. 22

23. Semantic Web
Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-guide2versioning/ 23
“The Semantic Web is not a
separate Web but an extension of
the current one, in which
information is given well-defined
meaning, better enabling
computers and people to work in
cooperation” (Berners-Lee et al.,
2001).
Planned to take advantage of the
Resource Description Framework
(RDF) and additional standards, the
semantic Web is being developed
by the W3C in collaboration with a
large number of researchers and
industrial partners (RDF, 2002)
(W3C, 2001).
The goal is to construct a network of structured, sharable semantics that is accessible, understandable, and
manipulable by computer agents. Computer agents (Semantic Web agents), acting on behalf of people or other
computer agents, will traverse the semantic network, find and manipulate information, perform desired tasks,
and offer services.

24. Web & Library Portals (Blogs @ NTU)
Source:http://ep-books.ehumanities.nl/semantic-words 24
Semantic WordPress for
Digital Scholarship framework
(Semantic WORDS)
• Enhanced Bibliplug
• Enhanced Publication
for WordPress
http://ep-
books.ehumanities.nl/enhanced-
bibliplug-plugin-for-wordpress
http://ep-
books.ehumanities.nl/enhanced-
publication-plugin-for-wordpress

25. Semantic Web in Federated Search
Source: Tamar Sadeh, Jenny Walker, (2003) "Library portals: toward the semantic Web", New Library World, Vol. 104 Iss: 1/2, pp.11 - 19 25
The current process of accessing
several resources for the sake of
seeking information is
cumbersome and requires some
knowledge of the various
resources, their access
mechanisms, the query interface
they provide, and the type of
results they return.
… requires a manual
comparison between the
results returned from several
resources and does not enable
the user to move from one
resource to another for further
discovery and navigation.

26. Semantic Web in Federated Search
Source: Tamar Sadeh, Jenny Walker, (2003) "Library portals: toward the semantic Web", New Library World, Vol. 104 Iss: 1/2, pp.11 - 19 26
Semantic Web
(Web 2.0 Applications)
Web portal
(NTU Library)
Library Portal
(Library Management System /
OPAC / Database Directory)
Federated
(Cross-Database Searching)
MetaLib
KnowledgeBase
The functional information
in the KnowledgeBase
• Information that sets
the rules for the
transfer of a query
• Information that sets the
rules for the
interpretation of the
results obtained from
the resource.

27. Semantic Web in Federated Search
Source: Tamar Sadeh, Jenny Walker, (2003) "Library portals: toward the semantic Web", New Library World, Vol. 104 Iss: 1/2, pp.11 - 19 27
Berners-Lee et al. (2001) state that “for the semantic Web to function, computers must
have access to structured collections of information and sets of inference rules that they
can use to conduct automated reasoning”.
A feasible example of the implementation of such inference rules is the use of a set of
transformations to convert the user query into a format that matches the specification of
the target’s search engine.

28. Semantic Web in Federated Search
Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-guide2versioning/ 28

29. Linked Data
Source:http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html 29
“The Semantic Web isn't just about putting data
on the web. It is about making links, so that a
person or machine can explore the web of
data. With linked data, when you have some of
it, you can find other, related, data.”
Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web
Watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
In computing, linked data describes a method of
publishing structured data so that it can be
interlinked and become more useful.
It builds upon standard Web technologies such
as HTTP and URIs, but rather than using them to
serve web pages for human readers, it extends
them to share information in a way that can be
read automatically by computers.
This enables data from different sources to be
connected and queried
One example is : WikiPedia

30. The Principles in Linked Data
Source:http://mashstream.com/semantic-web/about-mashups-and-linked-data/ 30
The principles in Linked Data are the following:
1. Use URIs as names for things.
2. Use HTTP URIs, so that people can look up those names.
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL).
4. Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things.

31. NTU LIBRARY’s Web Scale Discovery
Source: Vaughan, J. (2010), Web-Scale Discovery. URL: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/dispatches-field/web-scale-discovery 31
Web-scale discovery services for the library
environment are an evolution holding great potential
to easily connect researchers with the library’s vast
information repository, whether physical holdings,
such as books and DVDs; local electronic content,
such as digital image collections and institutional
repository materials; or remotely hosted content
purchased or licensed by the library, such as e-books
and publisher or aggregator content for thousands of
full-text and abstracting and indexing resources.

32. How does it works?
Source: Vaughan, J. (2010), Web-Scale Discovery. URL: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/dispatches-field/web-scale-discovery 32
NTU Web Scale Discovery
HTML
RSS
OpenURL - XML
MARC - XML
OAI - XML
Dublin Core /
Custom - XML
SFX
OpenURL link server
Metalib
Federated Search Engine
Library Catalogue
Database of local book, media & journals
Holidings, as well as print and media resources
Digital Repository
Local Publication of the university.
Student works, etc
E Resources
Database of e-resources
MARC - XML
Z39.50
XML
MARC

33. One Search @ NTU Library
33

34. Industrial Experience :
34
Usage of XML in Energy Market Industry
• In early 2000, EMA (Energy Market Authority of Singapore) decided
to liberate the energy market of big consumers.
• Big consumers include:
o Industries
o Oil and Gas production plants
o Pharmaceutical companies
o Ministries
o etc
Liberation of Market for Large Energy Consumers

35. Implication of Energy Liberation
35
Usage of XML in Energy Market Industry
• Singapore Power used to supply the energy.
• Liberation means
o There are many energy provider (retailers) for consumers to choose
from.
o Concept similar to Telco’s:
o No longer relying on Singtel
o Competitors are M1 and Starhub
o Energy retailers
o Power Seraya
o Senoko & etc

36. Implication of Energy Liberation
36
Usage of XML in Energy Market Industry
• Liberation means
o Price competitions
o Ensuring quality of good energy supply
o Absence of energy monopolizing by a single entity (Singapore Power)
o Fairer energy price pegs for the energy consumption.
o Benefit the consumer by a reduction in the overall energy bill due to
competition.

37. Implication of Energy Liberation
37
Usage of XML in Energy Market Industry
• Singapore Power used to supply the energy.
• Liberation means
o There are many energy provider (retailers) for consumers to choose
from.
o Concept similar to Telco’s:
o No longer relying on Singtel
o Competitors are M1 and Starhub
o Energy retailers
o Power Seraya
o Senoko & etc

38. The Role of IT in Establishing KM
38
Usage of XML in Energy Market Industry
• A system to permit transfer of energy readings from SP Services to
retailers for billing calculations.
• Keeping in mind these factors
o Independence from different business needs of retailers.
o Independence from the adopted technology adopted by each retailers.
o Permit easy segregation of cost of building the system.
o High availability
o Expansion opportunity to include new energy retailers.

39. Solution
39
Usage of XML in Energy Market Industry
• SonicMQ by Progess as a messaging broker
o A messaging software that open channels to allow transmission of
XML between 2 entities.
o Adopting J2ME engine.
o Independent of the software that consumes or transmit the XML.
o Works with
o Microsoft .Net platform
o Java SDK

42. Skills & Knowledge Needed
42
Main Activities/Tasks Done By System Librarians
Leadership, policies and procedures, collaboration, planning, supervision, resource
management, project management, grant, representation
Management
Digital projects/initiatives, technical standards/practices, design, development and
implementation, digital preservation, framework, digital repository, digital contents
aspects
Digital Library
Websites, digitizing/converting, technical support, system
administration/maintenance, data conversion, system analysis/testing, open source
software development, usability testing, interoperability, digital library technology
Technology
Metadata, access and retrieval mechanisms (bibliographic records, finding aids, EAD,
MARC records), quality control, databases.
Processing
Collection development, collection management, preservation/record management,
online resources
Collection &
Resources
Instruction/staff training, reference/public services, liaison, professional activities,
user studies
Others

43. Skills & Knowledge Needed
43
Main Activities/Tasks Done By System Librarians

44. 44

45. 45Source: http://dailyinfographic.com/anatomy-of-a-librarian-infographic

46. 46Source: http://dailyinfographic.com/anatomy-of-a-librarian-infographic

47. Applications of XML, Semantic Web & Linked Data
in Library/Information Services & Skills needed by
System Librarians.
H6716 (Internet & Web Technologies) &
K6224 (Internet Technologies & Applications)
Semester 2 – 2011/2012
Hazman Aziz, Librarian (Library Technology & Systems)
Amirrudin Dahlan, Senior IT Specialist (Center for IT & Services)
Nanyang Technological University
47