I was checking out the site for Neologism, a very cool new plugin for Drupal that is still in Alpha. Neologism is an editor for RDF Schema and makes it ridiculously simple to create and publish vocabularies for the Semantic Web. One of the best features, in my mind, is the graph view. Being a visual learner myself, I think it will help people to understand what they are modeling, especially for those new to the ideas of inverse properties, disjoint classes, domains and ranges. I am really looking forward to its release and suggest you check it out too, especially if you run Drupal-powered site.

The gang at DERI are supporters of SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities.) The SIOC Core Ontology has been modeled on the Neologism demo site. SIOC recognizes the importance of online communities as distributors of information, and aspires to make the data in those diverse sources consistently described so that information can be linked, shared and analyzed across them.  I also am a believer in the SIOC Project; the notions of re-use and serendipitous discovery are why I love the semantic web.

I was, however, a little irked at this one sentence in the blog:

While I do agree that online information has become a key source, I do not think it has yet "replaced" libraries and publishing.

I have recently moved myself, and rely more on the weekly free paper delivered to my home and the local library for awareness than the web. Why? It's a small town. Many of the small, unique, truly community-oriented events are run by people who simply don't "get" the social web. The web provides precision, but not recall. Plans that take me into the closest large city would lead me to the web; the number of events is large and I would like to use the power of computing to distill a search list to those events that may interest me.

As to libraries, MANY are taking great advantage of the social web / Web 2.0!  The Library 2.0 Interest Group on Facebook has over 6000 members. Per the LIS Wiki, Library 2.0 refers to the new ways that library services are delivered, to make the experiences more interactive, collaborative and community driven. The Web4Lib list contains many threads on how to use online games, wikis, blogs, micro-blogging sites and other tools to better interact with patrons - go where the users are! The world of Second Life contains "Information Island," where as I've posted before is where my avatar still waits. Libraries are hosting MMORPG days, teaching classes about MySpace, Facebook, blogging and IM, and delivering audio, video and eBooks from their sites. Librarians are discussing the best ways to use Twitter, including as a tool for sharing information with patrons.

Yes, I have a library degree. Yes, I am a bit biased!  Yes, I am concerned that libraries will be seen as dying a slow and painful death. I do not believe it. I believe we are seeing a re-birth of libraries into the social-semantic web. Besides - how many people on the web have the tolerance for tagging and classification that librarians do? They'll be the FIRST to adopt semantic web principles. I'm just one example!

SO - thank you to the team at DERI for all of the fantastic work you're doing for the promotion and advancement of the semantic web. Your efforts will make it easier for the average user, who doesn't want to deal with a post-grad level of understanding of OWL, to use semantic technologies. But, please don't overlook the valuable contributions of librarians and libraries to online communities! We all need to support them as they bring their authority and trust online.  Cheers!

Tags: DERI, Neologism, Drupal, SIOC, Library 2.0, Web 2.0, online communities, libraries, librarians