Semantic Web in Libraries - SWIB

After the success of the "Semantic Web in Libraries" (SWIB) events in

2009 and 2010, the SWIB11 will take place in Hamburg from 28 to 30 November 2011. The conference will again be organised by the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Centre (hbz), Cologne, and the German National Library of Economics - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW), Kiel and Hamburg.

A rising number of actors in librarianship and its related fields are experimenting with Semantic Web technologies and Linked Open Data (LOD). The LOD cloud as a whole grew by 300% in 2010, whereas the amount of data relevant for libraries grew by nearly 1000%. The W3C has created a "Linked Library Data" group to observe this development, whose first report is due to be published in August. The "Semantic Web Special Interest Group" established by IFLA shows that this topic has shown up on their radar as well. At the same time, the principles and workflows of traditional scientific communication and publication are under scrutiny with a view to a consistently web-based data and service infrastructure comprising the entire research and publication process. Concepts like "nano-publications", "Semantic Publishing", "Open Data", "Enhanced Publications" or "Research Objects" mark the re-orientation of academic work, away from monolithic, comparatively unflexible and barely interlinked reference points towards a distributed, comparatively granular data infrastructure which is continuously accessible to researchers and into which their contributions recognizably return.

These are the questions and topics which we would like to discuss with you at the conference:

* How do I find my way around the LOD cloud and how do I achieve

  maximum visibility for my assets?

* How do we produce useful links to and between newly published

  datasets?

* Where do we find best practice examples for LOD-based applications

  which show the added value created by linking assets, in particular

  domain-overlapping assets?

* What are the trends in scholarly communication? What are the

  consequences of the transformation of traditional research and

  publication processes for libraries and what are the opportunities

  Linked Open Data can offer here?

* Library Authority Files and their potential as LOD for library

  applications or research information systems

* What could or should a future Linked Open Data infrastructure look

  like? Are there trends to adapt library applications or research

  environments to the Semantic Web and to support their users in RDF

  publishing?

* Open licences as a prerequisite for LOD-based infrastructures

* What kind of support is to be expected from W3C, international and

  national bodies for future development?

These are our topics for SWIB11. Do you have an interesting project or research topic that should be presented at the conference? We would like to receive suggestions and proposals for contributions (with a brief abstract, no more than one page) until 20 June 2011. The conference will be held in German, but contributions in English are welcome. Please send them electronically to:

Joachim Neubert

ZBW

Tel. +49-(0)40-42834462

E-mail: j.neubert(at)zbw.eu

or

Adrian Pohl

hbz

Tel. +49-(0)221-40075235

E-mail: swib(at)hbz-nrw.de

Website: http://swib.org/swib11

Twitter: #swib11