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The Semantic Web focuses on creating a web of data, as opposed to the current Web, which is focused on documents. This new approach will allow machines and automatic processes to access information and reason about the (intended) meaning of documents. "The Semantic Web is a vision." As the W3C, the consortium in charge of the definition of norms on the Web, sates in their Semantic Web Activity Page: "the idea of having data on the Web defined and linked in such a way that it can be used by machines not just for display purposes, but for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications." (Taken from the W3C Semantic Web activity statement [http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/]) The focus is on under the hood techniques. Quoting VU artificial intelligence professor Frank van Harmelen in the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics' special issue of January 2008 dedicated to the Semantic Web: "Semantic Web technology is like Nikasil coating in the cylinders of a car: very few car drivers are aware of it, but they are aware of reduced fuel consumptions and the extended lifetime of the engine. Semantic Web technology is the Nikasil of the next generation of human friendly computer applications that are being developed right now."
Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, stated in their may 2007 report about the Semantic Web: "During the next ten years, web-based technologies will improve the ability to embed semantic structures in documents, and create structured vocabularies and ontologies to define terms, concepts and relationships. This will offer extraordinary advances in the visibility and exploitation of information- especially in the ability of systems to interpret documents and infer meaning without human intervention. ... The grand vision of the semantic web will occur in multiple evolutionary steps, and small-scale initiatives are often the best starting points."
The opportunities raised by the technologies the Semantic Web could offer, are not perceived only in a positive way in libraries. In some libraries the fear exists that "We're so far behind the curve that, by the time we get some sense of Web 3.0 (red. Web 3.0 = Web 2.0 + the Semantic Web) it will already have been surpassed. I wonder if we in LibraryLand are even aware that the Singularity is near?" (comment by Mark Andrews on Fiona Bradley's weblog, which is dedicated to library professionals discovering the semantic web: http://www.semanticlibrary.net/. Fiona Bradley is web manager at IFLA.) Fiona Bradley responds to this fear by stating that: "Often in libraries, we don't really know what others are developing or thinking about until we see the finished product. And that might be an unveiling of a new product at a conference, or a blog post. And that might be a year or more after the library started developing that new service or technology."
I think this last statement perfectly formulates one of the goals of this workshop: discover more about the Semantic Web and about what other libraries perceive as fruitful ideas, changes and/or opportunities. Luit Gazendam (luit.gazendam@telin.nl)
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