Conference on "Semantic Interoperability of Linked Data"

See posting on CMS Web log.

"A Unified Discovery Interface"

I posted something on the CMS blog about the new "Summon" service from Serial Solutions, the Andrew Nagy connection, and how it all relates to what David Weinberger said at the ALA 2009 OCLC Symposium.

Rochkind on the "State of the Future of Cataloging"

Rochkind is a fan of metadata and professional cataloging, but he worries about the future and for good reason. I've posted a summary of his recent comments on the CMS blog

Goal: VuFind via Ubuntu via VirtualBox on Mac

Yesterday I finally was able to get Sun's VirtualBox configured properly on my MacBook, and then install Ubuntu 8.10 as a guest O.S. My longer-term goal was to install VuFind using these installation instructions, but I got tripped up after the Oracle InstantClient download when I tried to execute "sudo pecl install oci8" and received the error message "Oracle client libraries not found". Steve Thomas reported a similar problem 5/27/08 on the vufind-gen discussion list. Wally Grotophorst's instructions may suggest a workaround, but at the moment I'm not even able to pull up my Apache home page..

Something to remember about issuing shell commands as root in Ubuntu: start with sudo -i, enter password; then, until otherwise instructed, shell will interpret all commands as coming from superuser. Prefacing individual commands with "sudo" doesn't work. Neither does "su".

Brad Wheeler on HathiTrust and the Importance of Librarian + Technologist Collaboration

Stefan K. cited a recent Chronicle.com letter to the editor by Pat Steele and Brad Wheeler of Indiana University, who write that the traditional rift between librarians and technologists is damaging both sides. They mention the HathiTrust shared digital repository as an example of successful collaboration between these two groups and across multiple institutions.

Wheeler gives a more detailed description of HathiTrust in his Jan. 6 interview with Library Journal Academic Newswire. For example, given the gargantuan size of the database, index "shards", metadata facets, and relevance-ranking algorithms can optimize system response time and enhance findability.

He mentioned that two of the HathiTrust partners, Michigan and Indiana, had already "benefitted tremendously from our past cooperation in the Sakai Project for open source courseware management software. Learning to work together across institutions to deliver production services is an important capability for the foreseeable future."

This seems like a point worth remembering as we track our involvement in the VuFind project.

2008 OSS timeline

LWN published its 11th annual timeline of significant OSS events, interspersed with quotations from key players. Here's one I liked from incoming Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst: "Open source is a way to focus on the customer, letting us grow, succeed, and change the technology landscape...all while doing something that is fundamentally good. Fighting for open standards and open formats. These things will change society. I'm thrilled to be here. "