Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Really helpful responses all. Moving forward with a plan that is much simpler than before. Thanks so much! Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Dan Scott Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2014 1:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there on linked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. Yes... this is where I was a year or two ago. Content negotiation / triple stores / ontologies / Turtle / n-quads / blah blah blah / head hits desk. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Adding to the barrage of suggestions, I would suggest a simple structured data approach: a) Get your web page working first, clearly showing the availability of the hardware: make the humans happy! b) Enhance the markup of your web page to use microdata or RDFa to provide structured data around the web page content: make the machines happy! Let's assume your web page lists hardware as follows: h1Laptops/h1 ul liLaptop 1: available (circulation desk)/li liLaptop 2: loaned out/li ... /ul Assuming your hardware has the general attributes of type, location, name, and status, you could use microdata to mark this up like so: h1Laptops/h1 ul li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop;span itemprop=nameLaptop 1/span: span itemprop=statusavailable/span (span itemprop=locationcirculation desk/span)/li li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop;span itemprop=nameLaptop 2/span: span itemprop=statusloaned out/span/li ... /ul (We're using the itemtype attribute to specify the type of the object, using a made-up vocabulary... which is fine to start with). Toss that into the structured data linter at http://linter.structured-data.org and you can see (roughly) what any microdata parser will spit out. That's already fairly useful to machines that would want to parse the page for their own purposes (mobile apps, or aggregators of all available library hardware across public and academic libraries in your area, or whatever). The advantage of using structured data is that you can later on decide to use div or table markup, and as long as you keep the itemscope/itemtype/itemprop properties generating the same output, any clients using microdata parsers are going to just keep on working... whereas screen-scraping approaches will generally crash and burn if you change the HTML out from underneath them. For what it's worth, you're not serving up linked data at this point, because you're not really linking to anything, and you're not providing any identifiers to which others could link. You can add itemid attributes to satisfy the latter goal: h1Laptops/h1 ul li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop; itemid=#laptop1span itemprop=nameLaptop 1/span: span itemprop=statusavailable/span (span itemprop=locationcirculation desk/span)/li li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop; itemid=#laptop2span itemprop=nameLaptop 2/span: span itemprop=statusloaned out/span/li ... /ul I guess if you wanted to avoid this being a linked data silo, you could link out from the web page to the manufacturer's page to identify the make/model of each piece of hardware; but realistically that's probably not going to help anyone, so why bother? Long story short, you can achieve a lot of linked data / semantic web goals by simply generating basic structured data without having to worry about content negotiation to serve up RDF/XML and JSON-LD and Turtle, setting up triple stores, or other such nonsense. You can use whatever technology you're using to generate your web pages (assuming they're dynamically generated) to add in this structured data. If you're interested, over the last year I've put together a couple of gentle self-guiding tutorials on using RDFa (fulfills roughly the same role as microdata) with schema.org (a general vocabulary of types and their properties). The shorter one is at https
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I don't understand the publish it and they will come mentality when it comes to linked data. If you can't define a clear use case for your own data infrastructure, then I can't see how you would justify the time spent. The making data available to the world at large is a nice byproduct, but you can't write a use case for unknown users with unknown goals. So, if you have no plans to use the data in some productive way, then I'm sure you have more pressing things to do with your time. -Shaun On 8/7/14 9:48 AM, Scott Prater wrote: Echoing others... the use case for linked data appears to be making data available to the world at large, unknown consumers, who may find a use for it that you never imagined. Name authority services (like VIAF), catalogs of public resources, map data -- all these are good candidates for a linked data approach. Hardware availability at your library? Not so much. It's hard to imagine a case where that information would be useful outside your walls. -- Scott On 08/07/2014 08:09 AM, Ethan Gruber wrote: I agree with others saying linked data is overkill here. If you don't have an audience in mind or a specific purpose for implementing linked data, it's not worth it. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Jason Stirnaman jstirna...@kumc.edu wrote: Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -- Shaun Ellis User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives Princeton University Library 609.258.1698 “Any darn fool can get complicated. It takes genius to attain simplicity.” -Pete Seeger
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Per Laura's message, and what I think was the underlying idea behind Mike's post, I think there's still a great opportunity to learn something new. Perhaps you might want to look at WebSocket [0], and Jason Ronallo's presentation from Code4lib 2014 [1] was a great intro. It seems like this might be a good candidate for showing real-time availability information. [0] https://www.websocket.org/ [1] http://jronallo.github.io/presentations/code4lib-2014-websockets/ Cheers, Mark -- Mark A. Matienzo m...@matienzo.org Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Shaun Ellis sha...@princeton.edu wrote: I don't understand the publish it and they will come mentality when it comes to linked data. If you can't define a clear use case for your own data infrastructure, then I can't see how you would justify the time spent. The making data available to the world at large is a nice byproduct, but you can't write a use case for unknown users with unknown goals. So, if you have no plans to use the data in some productive way, then I'm sure you have more pressing things to do with your time. -Shaun On 8/7/14 9:48 AM, Scott Prater wrote: Echoing others... the use case for linked data appears to be making data available to the world at large, unknown consumers, who may find a use for it that you never imagined. Name authority services (like VIAF), catalogs of public resources, map data -- all these are good candidates for a linked data approach. Hardware availability at your library? Not so much. It's hard to imagine a case where that information would be useful outside your walls. -- Scott On 08/07/2014 08:09 AM, Ethan Gruber wrote: I agree with others saying linked data is overkill here. If you don't have an audience in mind or a specific purpose for implementing linked data, it's not worth it. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Jason Stirnaman jstirna...@kumc.edu wrote: Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -- Shaun Ellis User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives Princeton University Library 609.258.1698 “Any darn fool can get complicated. It takes genius to attain simplicity.” -Pete Seeger
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
And a further thought: I thought part of the point of linked data is that we don't really know what people might want to do with our data. Who knows--maybe there is some enterprising CS student on your campus who will make an awesome app using your real-time availability data. Maybe once you've figured out how it works you can apply it to other things (ahem, circulation availability, anyone?). Laura [image: Laura Krier on about.me] Laura Krier about.me/laurakrier http://about.me/laurakrier On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 7:07 AM, Mark A. Matienzo mark.matie...@gmail.com wrote: Per Laura's message, and what I think was the underlying idea behind Mike's post, I think there's still a great opportunity to learn something new. Perhaps you might want to look at WebSocket [0], and Jason Ronallo's presentation from Code4lib 2014 [1] was a great intro. It seems like this might be a good candidate for showing real-time availability information. [0] https://www.websocket.org/ [1] http://jronallo.github.io/presentations/code4lib-2014-websockets/ Cheers, Mark -- Mark A. Matienzo m...@matienzo.org Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Shaun Ellis sha...@princeton.edu wrote: I don't understand the publish it and they will come mentality when it comes to linked data. If you can't define a clear use case for your own data infrastructure, then I can't see how you would justify the time spent. The making data available to the world at large is a nice byproduct, but you can't write a use case for unknown users with unknown goals. So, if you have no plans to use the data in some productive way, then I'm sure you have more pressing things to do with your time. -Shaun On 8/7/14 9:48 AM, Scott Prater wrote: Echoing others... the use case for linked data appears to be making data available to the world at large, unknown consumers, who may find a use for it that you never imagined. Name authority services (like VIAF), catalogs of public resources, map data -- all these are good candidates for a linked data approach. Hardware availability at your library? Not so much. It's hard to imagine a case where that information would be useful outside your walls. -- Scott On 08/07/2014 08:09 AM, Ethan Gruber wrote: I agree with others saying linked data is overkill here. If you don't have an audience in mind or a specific purpose for implementing linked data, it's not worth it. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Jason Stirnaman jstirna...@kumc.edu wrote: Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -- Shaun Ellis User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives Princeton University Library 609.258.1698 “Any darn fool can get complicated. It takes genius to attain simplicity.” -Pete Seeger
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Also, note that Martin Malmsten, of the Norwegian National Library (whose catalog is a linked data catalog) always states that one of the advantages of LD is that the difference between inside resources and outside resources disappears. It's all just linked resources. It makes sense to start with an inside resource, since you know more about it, but the same technology should work for any linking, anywhere, any time. kc On 8/8/14, 7:07 AM, Mark A. Matienzo wrote: Per Laura's message, and what I think was the underlying idea behind Mike's post, I think there's still a great opportunity to learn something new. Perhaps you might want to look at WebSocket [0], and Jason Ronallo's presentation from Code4lib 2014 [1] was a great intro. It seems like this might be a good candidate for showing real-time availability information. [0] https://www.websocket.org/ [1] http://jronallo.github.io/presentations/code4lib-2014-websockets/ Cheers, Mark -- Mark A. Matienzo m...@matienzo.org Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Shaun Ellis sha...@princeton.edu wrote: I don't understand the publish it and they will come mentality when it comes to linked data. If you can't define a clear use case for your own data infrastructure, then I can't see how you would justify the time spent. The making data available to the world at large is a nice byproduct, but you can't write a use case for unknown users with unknown goals. So, if you have no plans to use the data in some productive way, then I'm sure you have more pressing things to do with your time. -Shaun On 8/7/14 9:48 AM, Scott Prater wrote: Echoing others... the use case for linked data appears to be making data available to the world at large, unknown consumers, who may find a use for it that you never imagined. Name authority services (like VIAF), catalogs of public resources, map data -- all these are good candidates for a linked data approach. Hardware availability at your library? Not so much. It's hard to imagine a case where that information would be useful outside your walls. -- Scott On 08/07/2014 08:09 AM, Ethan Gruber wrote: I agree with others saying linked data is overkill here. If you don't have an audience in mind or a specific purpose for implementing linked data, it's not worth it. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Jason Stirnaman jstirna...@kumc.edu wrote: Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -- Shaun Ellis User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives Princeton University Library 609.258.1698 “Any darn fool can get complicated. It takes genius to attain simplicity.” -Pete Seeger -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there on linked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. Yes... this is where I was a year or two ago. Content negotiation / triple stores / ontologies / Turtle / n-quads / blah blah blah / head hits desk. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Adding to the barrage of suggestions, I would suggest a simple structured data approach: a) Get your web page working first, clearly showing the availability of the hardware: make the humans happy! b) Enhance the markup of your web page to use microdata or RDFa to provide structured data around the web page content: make the machines happy! Let's assume your web page lists hardware as follows: h1Laptops/h1 ul liLaptop 1: available (circulation desk)/li liLaptop 2: loaned out/li ... /ul Assuming your hardware has the general attributes of type, location, name, and status, you could use microdata to mark this up like so: h1Laptops/h1 ul li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop;span itemprop=nameLaptop 1/span: span itemprop=statusavailable/span (span itemprop=locationcirculation desk/span)/li li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop;span itemprop=nameLaptop 2/span: span itemprop=statusloaned out/span/li ... /ul (We're using the itemtype attribute to specify the type of the object, using a made-up vocabulary... which is fine to start with). Toss that into the structured data linter at http://linter.structured-data.org and you can see (roughly) what any microdata parser will spit out. That's already fairly useful to machines that would want to parse the page for their own purposes (mobile apps, or aggregators of all available library hardware across public and academic libraries in your area, or whatever). The advantage of using structured data is that you can later on decide to use div or table markup, and as long as you keep the itemscope/itemtype/itemprop properties generating the same output, any clients using microdata parsers are going to just keep on working... whereas screen-scraping approaches will generally crash and burn if you change the HTML out from underneath them. For what it's worth, you're not serving up linked data at this point, because you're not really linking to anything, and you're not providing any identifiers to which others could link. You can add itemid attributes to satisfy the latter goal: h1Laptops/h1 ul li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop; itemid=#laptop1span itemprop=nameLaptop 1/span: span itemprop=statusavailable/span (span itemprop=locationcirculation desk/span)/li li itemscope itemtype=http://example.org/laptop; itemid=#laptop2span itemprop=nameLaptop 2/span: span itemprop=statusloaned out/span/li ... /ul I guess if you wanted to avoid this being a linked data silo, you could link out from the web page to the manufacturer's page to identify the make/model of each piece of hardware; but realistically that's probably not going to help anyone, so why bother? Long story short, you can achieve a lot of linked data / semantic web goals by simply generating basic structured data without having to worry about content negotiation to serve up RDF/XML and JSON-LD and Turtle, setting up triple stores, or other such nonsense. You can use whatever technology you're using to generate your web pages (assuming they're dynamically generated) to add in this structured data. If you're interested, over the last year I've put together a couple of gentle self-guiding tutorials on using RDFa (fulfills roughly the same role as microdata) with schema.org (a general vocabulary of types and their properties). The shorter one is at https://coffeecode.net/rdfa/codelab/ and the longer, library-specific one is at http://stuff.coffeecode.net/2014/lld_preconference/ Hope this helps!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Most of the time I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing so I just make a solution that works BINGO. That describes me, and likely others, to a T. Roy On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I'm a one man shop and sometimes go to these conferences where many of you brilliant people are making these brilliant solutions making these ubiquitous black box data services that talk to one another using a standardized query language and I felt inspired and thought maybe I have been doing patch work on a job that really ought to be done a better way. I'm all about the bubble gum and duct tape stuff but I was at a point where it would have been a good time to migrate to something a little more robust. I'm getting the impression that for the size of the projects I'm working on linked data and other similar solutions are very much overkill. I'll have a PHP script output some custom xml that can be ingested on the other end and call it a day. Done :-) This is also, at least for me, a challenge I have with being a wear-a-lot-of-hats-and-sometimes-write-code person at a small institution. Most of the time I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing so I just make a solution that works without having others to bounce ideas off of. Thanks for the support. Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Riley-Huff, Debra Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 11:52 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service I agree with Roy. Seems like something that could be easily handled with PHP or Python scripts. Someone on the list may even have a homegrown solution (improved duct tape) they would be happy to share. I fail to see what the project has to do with linked data or why you would go that route. Debra Riley-Huff Head of Web Services Associate Professor JD Williams Library University of Mississippi University, MS 38677 662-915-7353 riley...@olemiss.edu On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: I'm puzzled about why you want to use linked data for this. At first glance the requirement simply seems to be to fetch data from your ILS server, which likely could be sent in any number of simple packages that don't require an RDF wrapper. If you are the only one consuming this data then you can use whatever (simplistic, proprietary) format you want. I just don't see what benefits you would get by creating linked data in this case that you wouldn't get by doing something much more straightforward and simple. And don't be harshing on duct tape. Duct tape is a perfectly fine solution for many problems. Roy On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I agree with others saying linked data is overkill here. If you don't have an audience in mind or a specific purpose for implementing linked data, it's not worth it. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Jason Stirnaman jstirna...@kumc.edu wrote: Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I’m not for bubble gum and duct tape. But I also realize that when I’ve got a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. After having made those two ambiguous statements I would ask myself, “What is the problem I am trying to solve?” If you want to make your data available in a linked data (Semantic Web) fashion, then starting out with a small set of content is a good thing. The process can be as simple as exporting the metadata from your exiting store, converting it into some flavor of serialized RDF (XML/RDF, turtle, etc.), and saving it on an HTTP file system. After that you can begin to play with content negotiation to support harvesting by humans as well as robots, triple stores for managing the RDF as a whole, enhancing the RDF’s URIs to point to other people’s RDF, or creating “mash-ups” and “graphs” — essentially services — against your meta data. It is a never ending process, but linked data works with other people’s data and is all but API-independent; it is pure HTTP. On the other hand, if the desire is to learn how to take your data to another level, and not necessarily through linked data, then there are many additional options from which to choose. Indexing your data with Solr. Figuring out ways to do massive find/replace operations. Figuring out ways to do massive enhancements, maybe with full text content or images. Using something like ElasticSearch to not only index your data but index it in combination with other data that is not so bibliographic in nature and yet not dummied down to Dublin Core or without a huge database schemas. But back to the hammer and nail, I think time spent exploring the possibilities of exposing content as linked data will not be time wasted. — Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I'm a one man shop and sometimes go to these conferences where many of you brilliant people are making these brilliant solutions making these ubiquitous black box data services that talk to one another using a standardized query language and I felt inspired and thought maybe I have been doing patch work on a job that really ought to be done a better way. I'm all about the bubble gum and duct tape stuff but I was at a point where it would have been a good time to migrate to something a little more robust. I'm getting the impression that for the size of the projects I'm working on linked data and other similar solutions are very much overkill. I'll have a PHP script output some custom xml that can be ingested on the other end and call it a day. Done :-) This is also, at least for me, a challenge I have with being a wear-a-lot-of-hats-and-sometimes-write-code person at a small institution. Most of the time I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing so I just make a solution that works without having others to bounce ideas off of. Thanks for the support. Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Riley-Huff, Debra Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 11:52 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service I agree with Roy. Seems like something that could be easily handled with PHP or Python scripts. Someone on the list may even have a homegrown solution (improved duct tape) they would be happy to share. I fail to see what the project has to do with linked data or why you would go that route. Debra Riley-Huff Head of Web Services Associate Professor JD Williams Library University of Mississippi University, MS 38677 662-915-7353 riley...@olemiss.edu On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: I'm puzzled about why you want to use linked data for this. At first glance the requirement simply seems to be to fetch data from your ILS server, which likely could be sent in any number of simple packages that don't require an RDF wrapper. If you are the only one consuming this data then you can use whatever (simplistic, proprietary) format you want. I just don't see what benefits you would get by creating linked data in this case that you wouldn't get by doing something much more straightforward and simple. And don't be harshing on duct tape. Duct tape is a perfectly fine solution for many problems. Roy On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Making a simple solution that works is often a great learning opportunity. However, if you have a problem, there's likely others who have the same problem and have already solved it. If you use the existing solutions, patterns and standards, then you are able to hand your project to someone else to work on when you tire of it. If you have some hacked together solution, it's not likely to outlast your tenure and your institution will have to replace it with a system that your successor is willing to maintain. -Justin On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 7:57 AM, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: Most of the time I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing so I just make a solution that works BINGO. That describes me, and likely others, to a T. Roy On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I'm a one man shop and sometimes go to these conferences where many of you brilliant people are making these brilliant solutions making these ubiquitous black box data services that talk to one another using a standardized query language and I felt inspired and thought maybe I have been doing patch work on a job that really ought to be done a better way. I'm all about the bubble gum and duct tape stuff but I was at a point where it would have been a good time to migrate to something a little more robust. I'm getting the impression that for the size of the projects I'm working on linked data and other similar solutions are very much overkill. I'll have a PHP script output some custom xml that can be ingested on the other end and call it a day. Done :-) This is also, at least for me, a challenge I have with being a wear-a-lot-of-hats-and-sometimes-write-code person at a small institution. Most of the time I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing so I just make a solution that works without having others to bounce ideas off of. Thanks for the support. Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Riley-Huff, Debra Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 11:52 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service I agree with Roy. Seems like something that could be easily handled with PHP or Python scripts. Someone on the list may even have a homegrown solution (improved duct tape) they would be happy to share. I fail to see what the project has to do with linked data or why you would go that route. Debra Riley-Huff Head of Web Services Associate Professor JD Williams Library University of Mississippi University, MS 38677 662-915-7353 riley...@olemiss.edu On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: I'm puzzled about why you want to use linked data for this. At first glance the requirement simply seems to be to fetch data from your ILS server, which likely could be sent in any number of simple packages that don't require an RDF wrapper. If you are the only one consuming this data then you can use whatever (simplistic, proprietary) format you want. I just don't see what benefits you would get by creating linked data in this case that you wouldn't get by doing something much more straightforward and simple. And don't be harshing on duct tape. Duct tape is a perfectly fine solution for many problems. Roy On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Echoing others... the use case for linked data appears to be making data available to the world at large, unknown consumers, who may find a use for it that you never imagined. Name authority services (like VIAF), catalogs of public resources, map data -- all these are good candidates for a linked data approach. Hardware availability at your library? Not so much. It's hard to imagine a case where that information would be useful outside your walls. -- Scott On 08/07/2014 08:09 AM, Ethan Gruber wrote: I agree with others saying linked data is overkill here. If you don't have an audience in mind or a specific purpose for implementing linked data, it's not worth it. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Jason Stirnaman jstirna...@kumc.edu wrote: Mike, Check out http://json-ld.org/, http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/, and https://github.com/digitalbazaar/pyld But, if you haven't yet sketched out a model for *your* data, then the LD stuff will just be a distraction. The information on Linked Data seems overly complex because trying to represent data for the Semantic Web gets complex - and verbose. As others have suggested, it's never a bad idea to just do the simplest thing that could possibly work.[1] Mark recommended writing a simple API. That would be a good start to understanding your data model and to eventually serving LD. And, you may find that it's enough for now. 1. http://www.xprogramming.com/Practices/PracSimplest.html Jason Jason Stirnaman Lead, Library Technology Services University of Kansas Medical Center jstirna...@kumc.edu 913-588-7319 On Aug 6, 2014, at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -- Scott Prater Shared Development Group General Library System University of Wisconsin - Madison pra...@wisc.edu 5-5415
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Well, I am in the same boat as you and my thought was, although it might be overkill, it might also be a good, small scale opportunity to experiment with something new and learn a new technology. Sometimes we have to take those learning opportunities where we can get them. Laura Sent from my iPad On Aug 7, 2014, at 5:55 AM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I'm a one man shop and sometimes go to these conferences where many of you brilliant people are making these brilliant solutions making these ubiquitous black box data services that talk to one another using a standardized query language and I felt inspired and thought maybe I have been doing patch work on a job that really ought to be done a better way. I'm all about the bubble gum and duct tape stuff but I was at a point where it would have been a good time to migrate to something a little more robust. I'm getting the impression that for the size of the projects I'm working on linked data and other similar solutions are very much overkill. I'll have a PHP script output some custom xml that can be ingested on the other end and call it a day. Done :-) This is also, at least for me, a challenge I have with being a wear-a-lot-of-hats-and-sometimes-write-code person at a small institution. Most of the time I'm not sure what I am supposed to be doing so I just make a solution that works without having others to bounce ideas off of. Thanks for the support. Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today! -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Riley-Huff, Debra Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 11:52 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service I agree with Roy. Seems like something that could be easily handled with PHP or Python scripts. Someone on the list may even have a homegrown solution (improved duct tape) they would be happy to share. I fail to see what the project has to do with linked data or why you would go that route. Debra Riley-Huff Head of Web Services Associate Professor JD Williams Library University of Mississippi University, MS 38677 662-915-7353 riley...@olemiss.edu On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: I'm puzzled about why you want to use linked data for this. At first glance the requirement simply seems to be to fetch data from your ILS server, which likely could be sent in any number of simple packages that don't require an RDF wrapper. If you are the only one consuming this data then you can use whatever (simplistic, proprietary) format you want. I just don't see what benefits you would get by creating linked data in this case that you wouldn't get by doing something much more straightforward and simple. And don't be harshing on duct tape. Duct tape is a perfectly fine solution for many problems. Roy On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
[CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Mike, If you want to create Linked Data, check out EasyLOD, https://github.com/mjordan/easyLOD. It's not a guide, but it does provide a toolkit. You'd need to write a data source plugin in PHP that scrapes your ILS but the EasyLOD framework will take care of most of the other bits involved in publishing Linked Data, assuming you're happy to provide only RDF/XML representations of your data (I never got around to providing other formats). If you decide that Linked Data is overkill, you may want to consider providing an API to your data. Check out http://api.lib.sfu.ca/equipment as an example. Mark - Original Message - I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Drupal has a variety of tools for working with RDF. These are best supported in Drupal 7, but there are also some tools for Drupal 6, the version that your school — except for the library — uses for their website. Thanks, Cary On Aug 6, 2014, at 11:45 AM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
Fedora 4 (https://github.com/fcrepo4/fcrepo4/releases) is based on the Linked Data Platform standard (http://www.w3.org/TR/ldp/). This enables you to just push linked data to it (using curl or the ldp gem in ruby, more languages to follow) and it's published. It's quite easy if you can get your head around RDF (turtle serialization). The Hydra Project and Islandora are working on Fedora 4 front ends for your patrons, who presumably do not read RDF, to use. - Justin On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 1:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I'm puzzled about why you want to use linked data for this. At first glance the requirement simply seems to be to fetch data from your ILS server, which likely could be sent in any number of simple packages that don't require an RDF wrapper. If you are the only one consuming this data then you can use whatever (simplistic, proprietary) format you want. I just don't see what benefits you would get by creating linked data in this case that you wouldn't get by doing something much more straightforward and simple. And don't be harshing on duct tape. Duct tape is a perfectly fine solution for many problems. Roy On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service
I agree with Roy. Seems like something that could be easily handled with PHP or Python scripts. Someone on the list may even have a homegrown solution (improved duct tape) they would be happy to share. I fail to see what the project has to do with linked data or why you would go that route. Debra Riley-Huff Head of Web Services Associate Professor JD Williams Library University of Mississippi University, MS 38677 662-915-7353 riley...@olemiss.edu On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: I'm puzzled about why you want to use linked data for this. At first glance the requirement simply seems to be to fetch data from your ILS server, which likely could be sent in any number of simple packages that don't require an RDF wrapper. If you are the only one consuming this data then you can use whatever (simplistic, proprietary) format you want. I just don't see what benefits you would get by creating linked data in this case that you wouldn't get by doing something much more straightforward and simple. And don't be harshing on duct tape. Duct tape is a perfectly fine solution for many problems. Roy On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu wrote: I have recently had the opportunity to create a new library web page and host it on my own servers. One of the elements of the new page that I want to improve upon is providing live or near live information on technology availability (10 of 12 laptops available, etc.). That data resides on my ILS server and I thought it might be a good time to upgrade the bubble gum and duct tape solution I now have to creating a real linked data service that would provide that availability information to the web server. The problem is there is a lot of overly complex and complicated information out there onlinked data and RDF and the semantic web etc. and I'm looking for a simple guide to creating a very simple linked data service with php or python or whatever. Does such a resource exist? Any advice on where to start? Thanks, Mike Beccaria Systems Librarian Head of Digital Initiative Paul Smith's College 518.327.6376 mbecca...@paulsmiths.edu Become a friend of Paul Smith's Library on Facebook today!
