I am building a little web service that spits out info on when the libraries (a
central library and two branches) are open and what the hours are for that day.
As those who work in academic libraries know, it's not the *regular* hours,
but all the exception dates/hours that are important (Spring break, Maymester,
intersession, Christmas holidays, yadda, yadda). This app knows all the
exceptions.
The basic idea is that it provides real-time, "is it open right now" info for
*today* (as well as today's hours). If this sounds "mobile-y", it's because it
was originally conceived as an addition to our Library's mobile website.
I'm trying to figure out the most flexible output markup (RDF schema?), one
that would allow the widest use of the web service in addition to outputting
HTML markup for a mobile site page.
I've googled and found a few things, but nothing that really seems to fit.
Most of them (e.g. the RDF "OpeningHoursUseCase" on W3C [1]) are more about
rules for recurring intervals. My interest is not in representing the totality
of the schedule (again, because of all the exception dates/times) but in
representing one day (i.e. today). So I don't care about representing
recurring intervals.
And actually, the "Outsider Comments" use cases at the bottom of the
"OpeningHoursUseCase" site mentioned above are almost exactly what I'm trying
to satisfy (just substitute "library" where you see "shop" or "restaurant):
<quote>
I'm looking for exactly this xml, but this seems to
be very complex, and going off in different tangents.
Here are my use cases:
- I wish to go to a shop or restaurant, and I wish to
know if it's open for the next few hours.
- It's late at night, and I need to go to the drug
store or a small market. I wish to be able to search
for a business that is open right now. The search
should happen on a mapping site, or a web search site.
- I have business with a microbusiness that's open only
a few days a week. It's important enough for me to
bring their schedule into my calendar, temporarily,
so I can get there when they're open.
- I want to coordinate a trip and run a few errands.
I would like to get all the hours for relevant
businesses on a specific day. I can sort through the
hours myself.
</quote>
I also saw that "opening times in RDF" was listed as a use case in the Code4Lib
wiki "Library Ontology" page [2]. However in the "Relevant formats and models"
section the links just complete the loop back to things like the
OpeningHoursUseCase previously mentioned.
Anyone done anything like this? Any ideas? Suggestions? (This is my first
baby-step into RDF, so don't assume any prior knowledge on my part.)
-- Michael
[1] http://www.w3.org/wiki/OpeningHoursUseCase
[2] http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Library_Ontology
# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
# [email protected]
# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
