Semantic Digital Libraries Bringing Libraries to Web 3.0

dr. Sebastian Ryszard Kruk is the co-founder and CEO of KnowledgeHives.com, a Web 3.0 startup. Previously, he was a PhD student, researcher (Semantic Infrastructure Lab at e-Learning Cluster in DERI NUI Galway), and project manager (Corrib.org) affiliated with DERI, National University of Ireland, Galway and the Gdansk University of Technology (GUT). His main areas of interest cover Semantic Web and social networking technologies, digital libraries, knowledge management, information retrieval, security and distributed computing.

In 2002, together with prof. Henryk Krawczyk he came up with an idea of the semantic digital library which was implemented first at GUT as the Elvis-DL project. In 2004, together with prof. Stefan Decker he transformed Elvis-DL into an open source project called JeromeDL, which was established as a joint initiative between DERI NUI Galway and GUT. In 2006 he delivered JOnto component, a unified API for
accessing different knowledge organization systems; recently extended to support Python API and published OpenVocabulary service builds on the ideas researched in the JOnto project. He set up notitio.us - a social semantic information sources discovery and sharing service. Last year his company released digi.me, a product that grew out of ideas researched in the notitio.us.

In 2008, together with Bill McDaniel he edited a book, and contributed to most of the chapters, on Semantic Digital Libraries (published by Springer).
In 2010 he published his second book on usability of services in Semantic Digital Libraries (published at Lulu.com). Both have been recognized worldwide and are now being translated into Polish (both of them) and Korean (the latter one).

He was invited to give five tutorials (at ICSD, JCDL, ESWC, WWW, ICSD) on Semantic Digital Libraries and one on tutorials on Web 3.0 (Autumn Meetings of PTI). In 2007, he organized the Irish Digital Libraries Summit and co-organized a Workshop on Web Archiving and NKOS
Workshop (at ESWC 2006).

He contributes to the Open Source community. He received the best paper award for the paper "Semantically Enhanced Search Services in Digital Libraries" at the International Conference on Internet and Web Applications and Services, 2006.

We would like to invite everyone to the 6th edition of the Tutorial on Semantic Digital Libraries. We will present it during the ICDK 2009 conference on February 14th-16th, 2011.

The aim of this tutorial is to educate attendees on the applications of Semantic Web (Web 3.0, Linked Data) and Social Networking (Web 2.0) technologies in digital library systems. These technologies include metadata management, semantic search and browsing, personalized and community-aware services, semantically empowered federations of digital libraries, and linked data applications for digital libraries. After this tutorial and the hands-on session, the audience will be able to start using existing semantic digital libraries and apply Semantic Web technologies to digital library systems.

• Sebastian Ryszard Kruk, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway
• Stefan Decker, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway
• Bernhard Haslhofer, University of Vienna, Austria
• Predrag Knežević, Fraunhofer IPSI Institute in Darmstadt, Germany
• Sandy Payette, Cornell University, USA
• Dean Krafft NSDL, USA

The aim of this tutorial is to educate attendees on the applications of Semantic Web and Social Networking (Web 2.0) technologies in digital library systems. These technologies include metadata management, semantic search and browsing, personalized and community-aware services, and semantically empowered federations of digital libraries. The semantic digital libraries can be used in enterprise scale systems such as knowledge management systems, medical records systems, legal research systems and others will be discussed at some depth. These applications can benefit in manners which directly impact the ROI for the effort of including semantic encoding and metadata into an enterprise’s digital library based systems and services. After this tutorial, the audience will be able to start using existing semantic digital libraries or apply Semantic Web technologies to digital library systems.

We will start by defining problems in the domain of semantic digital libraries and present solutions that provide building blocks for semantic digital libraries, such as WordNet, DMoz, and SKOS. We will then present the architecture of existing semantic digital libraries, elaborate on resource management, search and browsing features, identity management and communication interfaces. We will discuss in detail the problems and solutions for bibliographic metadata management and interoperability, followed by a presentation of semantic search and browsing solutions, and other personalized and community-aware services. We will discuss the future of federations of digital libraries in the context of the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 Internet.

Finally we will present four initiatives that adhere to the idea of a semantic digital library:

• SIMILE which leverages and extends DSpace by enhancing its support for arbitrary schemata and metadata;
• Corrib.org, which delivers semantic aware digital library components like JeromeDL, MarcOnt, FOAFRealm, and HyperCuP;
• BRICKS, the largest cultural heritage project in the EU’s 6th framework program, which applies semantic web technology for managing metadata in a European wide digital library network.
• FEDORA, a flexible service-oriented architecture for managing and delivering digital content

The tutorial will be followed by a hands-on session where participants will be able to try out existing prototypes of semantic digital libraries.
We will wrap up the whole tutorial by encouraging everyone to take part in the discussion on the future of semantic digital libraries:

• Do we need them?
• What are the requirements they should meet?
• Which solution from the presented ones to choose?
• How do semantic digital libraries affect user experience?
• Does the addition of semantics improve library access performance?
• What is the economic value add to the addition of semantics to digital libraries?

This tutorial was presented at the World Wide Web Conference 2007 in Banff, Canada.

The aim of this tutorial is to educate attendees on the applications of Semantic Web and Social Networking (Web 2.0) technologies in digital library systems. These technologies include metadata management, semantic search and browsing, personalized and community-aware services, and semantically empowered federations of digital libraries. The semantic digital libraries can be used in enterprise scale systems such as knowledge management systems, medical records systems, legal research systems and others will be discussed at some depth. These applications can benefit in manners which directly impact the ROI for the effort of including semantic encoding and metadata into an enterprise’s digital library based systems and services. After this tutorial, the audience will be able to start using existing semantic digital libraries or apply Semantic Web technologies to digital library systems.

[read more]

The aim of this tutorial is to educate attendees on the applications of Semantic Web and Social Networking (Web 2.0) technologies in digital library systems. These technologies include metadata management, semantic search and browsing, personalized and community-aware services, and semantically empowered federations of digital libraries. The semantic digital libraries can be used in enterprise scale systems such as knowledge management systems, medical records systems, legal research systems and others will be discussed at some depth. These applications can benefit in manners which directly impact the ROI for the effort of including semantic encoding and metadata into an enterprise digital library based systems and services. After this tutorial, the audience will be able to start using existing semantic digital libraries or apply Semantic Web technologies to digital library systems.
We will start by defining problems in the domain of semantic digital libraries and present solutions that provide building blocks for semantic digital libraries, such as WordNet, DMoz, and SKOS. We will then present the architecture of existing semantic digital libraries, elaborate on resource management, search and browsing features, identity management and communication interfaces. We will discuss in detail the problems and solutions for bibliographic metadata management and interoperability, followed by a presentation of semantic search and browsing solutions, and other personalized and community-aware services. We will discuss the future of federations of digital libraries in the context of the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 Internet.
Finally we will present four initiatives that adhere to the idea of a semantic digital library:

• SIMILE which leverages and extends DSpace by enhancing its support for arbitrary schemata and metadata;
• Corrib.org, which delivers semantic aware digital library components like JeromeDL, MarcOnt, FOAFRealm, and HyperCuP;
• BRICKS, the largest cultural heritage project in the EU 6th framework program, which applies semantic web technology for managing metadata in a European wide digital library network.
• FEDORA, a flexible service-oriented architecture for managing and delivering digital content

The tutorial will be followed by a hands-on session where participants will be able to try out existing prototypes of semantic digital libraries.
We will wrap up the whole tutorial by encouraging everyone to take part in the discussion on the future of semantic digital libraries:

• Do we need them?
• What are the requirements they should meet?
• Which solution from the presented ones to choose?
• How do semantic digital libraries affect user experience?
• Does the addition of semantics improve library access performance?
• What is the economic value add to the addition of semantics to digital libraries?