[CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service

[Michael Beccaria]

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

[Mark Jordan]

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

[Cary Gordon]

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  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

[Justin Coyne]

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 
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

[Roy Tennant]

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 
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

[Riley-Huff, Debra]

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  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  >
> 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

[Roy Tennant]

"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 
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  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
> >  > >
> > 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

[Ethan Gruber]

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  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 
> 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

[Eric Lease Morgan]

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

[Michael Beccaria]

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  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 
>  >
> 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

[Jason Stirnaman]

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  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

[Justin Coyne]

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  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  >
> 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 
> 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
> > >  > > >
> > > 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 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service

[Scott Prater]

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  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 
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

[Laura Krier]

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  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  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 
>> > 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

[Shaun Ellis]

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 
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 
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

[Mark A. Matienzo]

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 
Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America


On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Shaun Ellis  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 
>>> 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 
 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

[Laura Krier]

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
  


On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 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 
> Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Shaun Ellis  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 
> >>> 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 Pa

Re: [CODE4LIB] Creating a Linked Data Service

[Karen Coyle]

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 
Director of Technology, Digital Public Library of America


On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Shaun Ellis  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 
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 
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

[Dan Scott]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Michael Beccaria 
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:

Laptops

  Laptop 1: available (circulation desk)
  Laptop 2: loaned out
   ...


Assuming your hardware has the general attributes of "type", "location",
"name", and "status", you could use microdata to mark this up like so:

Laptops

  http://example.org/laptop";>Laptop 1: available
(circulation desk)
  http://example.org/laptop";>Laptop 2: loaned
out
   ...


(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  or  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:

Laptops

  http://example.org/laptop";
itemid="#laptop1">Laptop 1: available (circulation
desk)
  http://example.org/laptop"; itemid="#laptop2">Laptop 2: loaned
out
   ...


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

[Michael Beccaria]

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 
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:

Laptops

  Laptop 1: available (circulation desk)
  Laptop 2: loaned out
   ...


Assuming your hardware has the general attributes of "type", "location", 
"name", and "status", you could use microdata to mark this up like so:

Laptops

  http://example.org/laptop";>Laptop 1: available
(circulation desk)
  http://example.org/laptop";>Laptop 2: loaned out
   ...


(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  or 
 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:

Laptops

  http://example.org/laptop";
itemid="#laptop1">Laptop 1: available (circulation 
desk)
  http://example.org/laptop"; itemid="#laptop2">Laptop 2: loaned out
   ...


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!