Mar 2, 2009

Semantic Web

Semantic web = Machines talking to other machines to make sense of the data and draw connections and information from multiple disparate sources.



Ok, I think I got that, but trying to understand 'how' that can be done and the work required to achieve it (semantic web stack) just fried my brain.

Voyage RSS feeds

AFRGRGGGHHH.... I feel sea sick......all those feeds fading in and out and spinning away and a little bit fuzzy.....that's what Voyage RSS feed viewing does for you.

Very cool in that black space - especially when you delete all the rubbish that you don't want and add your own RSS urls (easy to add and delete content) but still made me feel a little squeamish...

Kartoo...

I first met Kartoo when he was a young wizard.



He was just starting out in visualization and did a pretty good job given that he was only a young apprentice. The flash work is now, well, more flash - those little bubblies and the colour contours and nice but overall I think he's not as good as he was.



I did my favourite search eg Shakespeare and the inital visual mapping looks ok but then trying to work out to get to the content I wanted was not easy. I wanted to find text of Shakespeare's sonnets and when I followed that path I found a website claiming that some one else (Edward de Vere) was the real author of Shakespeare's sonnets. Well, Kartoo might be wacky but he might also get a whack if he mucks around too much! In the end I did find the site I wanted so Kartoo - all is forgiven.

VU find

Well, the old OPAC couldn't get any worse!

I like VUfind. I like the clear layout and the facetting aspects (eg the language, genre, format) although I think that the NLA have done better work in making these indexes work than the catalogue I looked at from the VUfind site. eg search on Shakespeare

I also like the format icons in the records - picture, book, online really stands out and will help users find the material in the format they want.

LinkedIn - business social networking

Back for more with LinkedIn. As a lot of work related information is based on networking it makes sense that there is a business orientated social networking site.

Librarianship is a small industry so if you have worked in libraries for some time you get to know people. But for those new to the industry it would be good to have a place to start the networking process.