One Big Library.

Wednesday I spoke at the TCDL 2009 conference about why I think Linked Data is important for libraries. I've given talks about this twice before, once at the code4lib 2009 pre-conference on linked data, and a variation on that talk at the TCDL 2009 developers forum pre-conference Tuesday.

This was the first time I spoke about this in a room not entirely filled with hackers, though, so I couldn't just start talking about conneg and RDF models. It needed more context. As far as I can tell, the context that matters most is that we've been building a web for fifteen years, now, and we've continually changed how we build the web as we've changed how we use the web. So I spent most of the talk stressing how adhering to the four rules of Linked Data can help us make our libraries' stuff more relevant, more connected, and more likely to be found and used by improving how we link things together.

First, though, a comment about the contents of the slides - I work for the Library of Congress, but I wasn't representing the library at this talk, which I traveled to and gave off work hours. So that second slide is for real - the opinions are my own. You'll see a lot of LC examples, there, though, for two reasons. One is that I see these sites and think about them a lot, much like the rest of you, just more so because I'm there. When I can show an example from an LC site, it's likely something most people in a room have seen before and understand. The other reason is that LC has a long history of doing digital library stuff, so long that a lot of what's up there looks prehistoric in some ways, but at the same time, there are a lot of cool new things happening there, not all of which get a lot of attention, like LCCN Permalink. I don't work directly on any of the systems which have screenshots in these slides, so when you see images of those systems, you're not seeing my work. I know a few scattered details about the systems and am lucky to get to interact with many of the people who work on building them, but when I spoke about them at TCDL I had no intention of representing their work, and said so. My comments probably seemed more critical than promotional, but I meant them to illustrate situations we all find ourselves in at all our institutions, that we all know well about already, so it's not news to anybody that we all need to improve how we do things.

So, right, disclaimer doubly disclaimed. On with the slides:

I really enjoy events like TCDL - a single track, a healthy mix of public services, technical services, IT, managers, and administrators, and a tech focus but with a broad perspective necessary to talk tech in a roomful of diverse skills and interests. It really focuses my attention on the one or two issues that are at the core of the changes in technology coming at us. It seemed like people received the talk well, as I heard several comments from non-coders and coders alike about how it made sense that we should move in this direction.

Unfortunately I had to leave early but I'd encourage you to look at the abstracts and learn about all the great work being done in the Lone Star state.

...in which Ross Singer tells us all about his new job at Talis and his work on Jangle, aka Just Another Next Generation Library Environment. Jangle is an effort to connect and expose library resources using the Atom Publishing Protocol, but it's not as easy or obvious to do that as it sounds at first. Ross takes us through the reasoning of why Jangle is a compelling next step in the evolution of library web services and what needs to happen next.

We recorded this interview a few weeks ago, on the day of Halloween, before the U.S. presidential election, so if there's a reference or two to costumes or voting, that's why.

Read more about Jangle at:

• jangle.org, where Version 1.0 of the Jangle specification is now available
• the google group for jangle discussion
• see Ross's lightning talk about Jangle at this past February's code4libcon 2008
• we also mentioned the DLF ILS API

Thanks for keeping it tuned to Library Geeks!

Joshua Ferraro, Debra Denault, and Chris Cormack (see two of their smiling faces here) of LibLime joined me to discuss their work at LibLime and on koha in particular. I've been watching koha for the better part of eight years, since it was first released (if you don't believe me, check here). That this "gift" has led to hundreds of implementations in many countries worldwide in 27 languages is a remarkable testament to the power of free/libre/open source software in libraries.

The most exciting thing to me is that they're growing a healthy company around the koha project and related services without sacrificing anything about what made this one of the first important library free software projects. It's just as available to everyone today as it was back in 2000 when they first started sharing it with all of us, and it's better than ever.

Listen in to hear this whole story, and in particular, to hear about the latest and greatest features coming in the soon-to-be-released koha 3.

Some things we mentioned included:

• Marshall Breeding's History of Library Automation, which stops at 2006 - LibLime, Index Data and Equinox don't even appear!
• translate.koha.org, the Koha Translation Manager, which is based on Kartouche.
• Version Control for Koha using Git, the koha documentation for using their git environment, which you can also browse right here.
• Wikipedia on electric fences. You'll have to listen to understand.

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so I'll apologize to Josh, Debra, and Chris and anyone listening for the audio being a bit uneven, and for the annoying echo you'll hear sometimes. I'll iron out the gear upgrades and things will sound better next time around.

Oh, one last thing - I've installed the encl_remote module for drupal which should allow me to *finally* link to the podcast audio directly from this blog with enclosure-style links. So if you're subscribed here, you should get the 'cast files, too! And the link to the audio file is just below these very words a few centimeters or so. Let me know if these work for you.

Gary Price of ask.com is like that great reference librarian you remember from childhood or with whom you used to work who *always* knows seven great answers to any question that starts with "Where would I go to look for...", and tells you which ones to try, in which order, and how they complement each other, and is always right. Except Gary and his colleagues do this for everybody on the whole web through his sites ResourceShelf and Docuticker, and for the past year through his job at Ask. Gary and I met several years ago, and we're new neighbors now, so we sat down together at a local coffee shop to catch up and to talk about his career and how he approaches his work.

There's a bit more ambient noise on this recording than usual, which means our recording levels are uneven sometimes, and I'm sorry about that. I hope you'll agree, though, that we have so much to learn from Gary about politely getting in the faces of our users to teach them what's out there and how to get the most out of it while saving them time, effort, and aggravation that it's worth listening through the noise.

Some of the many resources Gary mentions included:

• Price's List of Lists
• Intute
• the International Children's Digital Library
• Ask City
• Exalead
• WebSite-Watcher

This is one to listen to when you're sitting at your machine, or at least with a notepad nearby, because for everything listed above, he mentions at least two more resources worth your time and attention, and you'll want to try them out.

...oh!, and, I'd be remiss not to remind you that Gary just got married! Mazel tov to husband and wife, and safe travels! Stay tuned for more episodes to feature Gary and news about the latest and greatest resources on the 'net.

Find the feed at left, or just search for "library geeks" in iTunes to subscribe.