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345 lines
12 KiB
345 lines
12 KiB
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<head>
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<meta name="generator"
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content="HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 1st September 2004), see www.w3.org" />
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
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content="text/html; charset=us-ascii" />
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<title>Semantic Web Advanced Development for Europe
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(SWAD-Europe)</title>
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<link href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/style/swad-europe-showcase.css"
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rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
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<style type="text/css">/*
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<![CDATA[*/
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font-family: verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
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#leftcontent {
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#mainMenu {
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.menu li {
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.menu li a {
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span.key {
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/*]]>
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*/</style>
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="leftcontent" valign="top">
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<div align="center" valign="top">
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe">
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<img alt="SWAD-Europe"
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src="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/images/swade100.gif"
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height="75" border="0" /></a>
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<a href="http://www.cordis.lu/ist/">
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<img src="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/images/istlogo-thumb.gif"
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alt="EU IST logo" height="75" border="0" /></a>
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</div>
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<div id="mainMenu">
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<ul id="menuList">
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<li class="nonexpandingmenubar">
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/" id="introMenu"
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name="introMenu">Introduction</a>
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</li>
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<li class="menubar">
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<a id="demosMenuActuator" class="actuator" accesskey="d"
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name="demosMenuActuator">Demonstrators</a>
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<ul id="demosMenu" class="menu">
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/sem-blog.html">
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Semantic Blogging</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/sem-portal.html">
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Semantic Portals</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/sem-thes.html">
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Thesaurus Browser</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/sem-large.html">
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Scale Demonstrator</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="menubar">
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<a id="themesMenuActuator" class="actuator" accesskey="t"
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name="themesMenuActuator">Themes</a>
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<ul id="themesMenu" class="menu">
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/gs.html">Getting
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Started</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/tools/">Tools</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/digital-libraries.html">
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Digital Libraries</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/business-integration.html">
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Business Integration</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/images.html">
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Image Description</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/community/">
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Community Building</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/history.html">
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Project History</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/future.html">
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Future Directions</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="menubar">
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<a id="guideMenuActuator" class="actuator" accesskey="g"
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name="guideMenuActuator">Guidelines</a>
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<ul id="guideMenu" class="menu">
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<!--<li><a href="blank.html">Aerospace</a> stilo*</li>-->
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/lifesci.html">
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Life Science</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/guide-for-librarian.html">
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Librarian</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/coder.html">
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Coder</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/business-guidelines.html">
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Business Integration</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/heritage.html">
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Heritage</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="menubar">
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<a id="resourcesMenuActuator" class="actuator" accesskey="r"
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name="resourcesMenuActuator">Resources</a>
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<ul id="resourcesMenu" class="menu">
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/intro.html">
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Reports</a>
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</li>
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<li>
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/presentations.html">
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Presentations</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="nonexpandingmenubar">
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/showcase/contact.html"
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id="contactMenu" name="contactMenu">Contact</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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</div>
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<!-- content goes here -->
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<div id="rightcontent">
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<h1 class="title">Themes: Digital Libraries</h1>
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<h2 class="title">What do we mean by digital libraries?</h2>
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<p class="title">Libraries are a key component of the information
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infrastructure which underpins modern life. The provide a essential
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resource for the public and the specialist for reference and for
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research.</p>
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<p class="title">However, the environment for libraries is
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changing. The cost of buying and archiving books and journals is
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increasing, and the amount of space required to provide physical
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collections based on paper is becoming so great that only a few
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national collections can accommodate more than a fraction of the
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total output. At the same time, the use of digital media has
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enabled the production of material electronically economically and
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with much smaller space constraints. at the same time the near
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universal availability of high-speed networks with the WWW has
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revolutionised the distribution and access of information resources
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to anywhere in the world. Together these givce an opportunity to
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reinvent the library as a <em>digital library</em>, a library which
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is largely defined by its provision of resources using digital
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media, and providing online access to those resources.</p>
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<p>Digital libraries also offer the opportunity for the library to
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reconsider its function. Traditionally, libaries have collected
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publications generated by publishers, and catalogued them so that
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they can be retrieved in a systematic fashion. In a university or
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research organisation, they have typically supplied subject
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specialists to assist users to find the relevant resources. In a
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world of digital libraries, this function can be reconsidered, and
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two major functions are now possible:Information gathering, and
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Information Publication</p>
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<h3>Information gathering.</h3>
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<p>This is the traditional role of the library; gathering and
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cataloguing resources for archiving and use by the users of the
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library.</p>
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<p>This traditional role remains, but with a change of emphasis
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away from the storage and cataloguing of physical resources, to the
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provision of <em>access</em> to reources (they are not necessarily
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physically moved) and the addition of electronic, searchable
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catalogues so that users can electronically locate the relevant
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resources.</p>
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<p>For information gathering in digital libraries, the major issue
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is how to locate material from amongst the very large amount
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available either in free or subscription repositories, those which
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are most relevant to the users in the organisation; that is how to
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narrow down the search accurately to provide the most relevant and
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only the most relevant publications.</p>
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<h3>Information publishing.</h3>
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<p>The library also has the opportunity of becoming the channel by
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which the organisation disseminates its results to the world.</p>
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<p>In this role, the library takes on one of the traditional roles
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of the publisher in spreading the word of the output of the
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organisation. Publishers will certainly likely to continue to play
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their role, typically as a mark of quality through peer review. But
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through movements such as the Open Archive Initiative <a href=
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"http://www.openarchives.org/">http://www.openarchives.org/</a>,
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institutes are increasing preserving and disseminating their own
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publications.</p>
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<p>For information publishing via libraries, the main issue is how
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to provide information on the publications stored in the
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institutional repository so that they can be accessed by the
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maximum number of the relevant readership (for example typically
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for research publications this would be other researchers in the
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field; for other publications there is also the most relevant
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target audience. Thus the problem is one of providing accurate
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catalogue data which can be searched by other users and their
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agents.</p>
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<h2 class="title">How does the semantic web help?</h2>
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<p>The key aspect for the Digital Library community is the
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provision of <em>shared catalogues</em> which can be published and
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browsed. This requires the use of common <em>metadata</em> to
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describe the fields of the catalogue, (such as author, title, date,
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publisher); and common <em>controlled vocabulary</em> to allow
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subject indentifiers to be assigned to publications.</p>
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<p>By publishing controlled vocabularies in one place, which can
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then be accessed by all users across the Web, then library
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catalogues can use the same web-accessible vocabularies to
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catalogue their publications, marking them using the most relevant
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terms from the most relevant thesauri for the domain of interest.
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Then search engines can use the same vocabularies to control and
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refine their search to ensure that the most relevant items of
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information are returned to the user.</p>
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<p>The semantic web offers relevant standards and approaches that
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can help with these problems. It offers open standards that can
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enable vendor neutral solutions, it offers a useful flexibility
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(structured and semi-structured, formal and informal, open
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extensibility) and it helps to support decentralized solutions
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where that is appropriate. Thus RDF can be used as a common
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interchange format for catalogue metadata and shared vocabulary,
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which can be used by all libraries and search engines across the
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Web.</p>
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<p class="title">Whilst other formats can be used as well, RDF does
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have some advantages. It is a generic open standard whereas many
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alternatives are either proprietary or specific to a particular
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domain. It standardizes the data model (together with a
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serialization syntax) whereas alternatives such as direct use of
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XML focus on the document syntax. By breaking down information into
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small independent units (triples) and using global identifiers for
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all objects/properties/types (URIs) it becomes possible to
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integrate information from several sources by simply concatenating
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the sets of the triples and following the new relations. The data
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model is sufficiently simple and makes sufficiently few assumptions
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that it be used to express both structured and semi-structured data
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making integration across heterogeneous sources more
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straightforward.</p>
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<h2 class="title">SWADE resources relevant to this problem</h2>
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<h3 class="title">Thesaurus formats and demonstrators</h3>
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<p>The main place to begin for the Digital Library community in the
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SWAD-Europe project is the <a href=
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"http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/">SWAD-Europe
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Thesaurus Activity</a>. Here, we provide a set of standard formats
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and tools for describing controlled vocabularies and
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classifications called the Simple Knowledge Organistion System
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(SKOS). We also provide some sample thesauri which use these
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formats, and some demonstration software to allow people and
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programs to browse and select terms from a thesuaus across the
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web.</p>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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