Schema.org and the W3C Bibliographic Extension Group

The Semantic Web in Libraries (SWIB) annual conference took place last week in Bonn, Germany. This event set out to:

“… provide substantial information on LOD developments relevant to the library world and to foster the exchange of ideas and experiences among practitioners. SWIB encourages thinking outside the box by involving participants and speakers from other domains, such as scholarly communications, museums and archives, or related industries.”

And it looks like they’ve done a good job fulfilling that aim. Thankfully the sessions were live-streamed so I was able to participate at least in a small way and, even better, the presentations were recorded and are now available on SciVee TV.

Luckily enough, one speaker I did get to see live on Tuesday morning (afternoon in Germany) was Dan Scott the Systems Librarian from Laurentian University. Drawing on his philosophy background Scott began by exploring some first principles speaking about the need for our “cataloguing efforts to be web oriented,” the usefulness of the Schema.org vocabulary and the role of the W3C Schema.org Bibliographic Extension Group. Richard Wallis, OCLC Technology Evangelist and Chair of this W3C Community Group, also touched on the work of this Group at LODLAM earlier this fall.

The Group‘s mission is to “discuss and prepare proposal(s) for extending Schema.org schemas for the improved representation of bibliographic information markup and sharing.” It’s an open group so anyone interested in helping shape the Schema.org vocabulary into a more library friendly place are invited to join in the conversation. You can also follow or join the public email list to keep up-to-date with their current activity.

Lots of great sessions from SWIB to check out and, if you haven’t watched the LODLAM training day videos yet, they are also well worth viewing.

After a quick look through the full Schema.org vocabulary hierarchy I’m also left wondering if there’s a place for law in Schema.org? Some food for thought for a future post …

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