Tuesday, May 27, 2003

I will be spinning off a "personal blog" soon #

I've finally decided to spit my blogging world into two -- pushing this current one (the IU Technology Architecture Lodge) more towards the "professional" end of the spectrum and setting up a new one -- probably at http://raymondyee.net/blog once my hosting arrangments get settled.  I'm excited about the split, one that I have been contemplating for a while and about which I wrote in April.  I think that mingling the professional and personal has kept me from fully articulating either.  Two blogs will let me stress different facets of who I am and what I'm thinking about or feeling -- without putting up a strong dividing wall either.  The wonderful thing about the Web is both blogs will be available and will sometimes refer to each other.  However, they will have an integrity of their own. Let me try to give a concrete example of how I hope things will change.  Whether I like it or not, my life is largely split between the professional and the personal.  There are few folks who know me from both contexts.  Although I don't try to find my personal side at work or totally refrain from talking about my work with my friends, there is a soft wall between the two worlds.  My blog is thus potentially confusing to my audiences that come from either the professional or personal sides of my life.  One moment, I'm talking about XML crosswalks.  The next moment, my love for Bach and they play I saw last night.  The people who care about one is likely not to care about the other. Moreover, the fact that my professional blog is being hosted by my employer, the Interactive University Project at the University of California, Berkeley, does constrain me in what I talk about and how I talk about it. Not that the boundaries are that hard and fast and not that I necessarily want to discourage folks from blogging about very personal matters on our server -- but I have found myself uncomfortable with writing too much about the "personal me" in this venue.  Note that my unease is not with having the stuff on the Web in the first place -- rather, it has more to do with "association by hosting".  I think that having my personal blog hosted elsewhere will go a long way to addressing that unease At any rate, that's the theory.  What I forsee at this moment is much more writing about libraries, learning objects, amazon.com web services, the Scholar's Box, intellectual property issues on this blog -- and lots about Bach, Chinese art, Chekhov, the Pacific Film Archives, my family in Toronto, my church life, existential angst, chatting with my blogging buddies, my favorite non-profits, justice, what I'm reading, movies, community living in my other blog.  And I want to keep some personal voice regardless of what I'm writing about. Also -- one more reason for the split.  I want to try out tools other than Manila.  I'm satisfied with keeping this blog going in Manila -- but I'm itching to experiment with systems like Movable Type.  Manila seems to have fallen so far behind, especially if one is not using Radio -- or at least, I can't get past that impression. Wish me luck.  I'll post the location of the new blog when it's ready.... (Thanks to Laura, in particular, for the encouragement I needed to go ahead with this split. We had a good chat on Friday afternoon.)   Posted by Raymond Yee on 5/27/03; 10:44:41 PM from the Personal Notes dept. Discuss

I thought that I'd be geekier! #
Thanks to Laura "24.063125% geek" Shefler and Catherine "39.25049% Major Geek" Yoes, I decided to try the geek test myself.  I should reward myself bonus geek points for being disappointed that I scored only 21.69625% -- "Geek" on the test (I'm beyond having "geekish tendencies" but I'm not a "total geek" yet.)   Posted by Raymond Yee on 5/27/03; 10:19:26 PM from the Personal Notes dept. Discuss

Conversation with Jean Godby on crosswalks #

Last week, I had the chance to talk at length with Jean Godby of OCLC.  I met Jean last week in New York at the Digital Library Federation meeting.  It turns out that she and colleagues at OCLC have been looking at the problem of metadata translation that I've been working on for a little while. [old stuff, newer stuff]  She presented her work at CNI last fall -- and her handout for the meeting has some excellent references.  Here's Jean's abstract from the talk she gave at the DLF with her colleagues: "OCLC Metadata Switch." Thom Hickey, Chief Scientist; Jean Godby, Research Scientist; Diane Vizine-Goetz, Research Scientist, OCLC Libraries are creating more metadata for more types of material. They are using different metadata formats. In some cases they may use different metadata systems It would not be unusual for a library to be creating metadata in some or all of the following: MARC, Dublin Core, Encoded Archival Description (EAD); or, for this activity to take place within a library management system, a content management system, a custom-developed database application, or some combination of these. We are also seeing a growing interest in harvesting metadata, pulling metadata from different repositories, fusing it and disclosing it in 'union' services. The mechanics of harvesting are becoming routine and well understood, and this is now introducing the interesting challenge of effectively fusing metadata so that a useful retrieval experience can be offered. This metadata will often not have been created within a framework of consistent practice; approaches to subjects or names will be different for example. The question we have asked ourselves is what type of services would be valuable to libraries in this increasingly diverse environment. The OCLC Metadata Switch project is a response to this question. The Metadata Switch is an umbrella activity for a set of projects, which are constructing experimental modular services that add value to metadata: harvesting metadata 'fusion' of metadata from different sources schema transformation enrichment or augmentation of records with various types of data terminology and name authority services We are testing how to make this functionality available as 'web services', web-based machine-to-machine applications which can be combined in various ways. The presentation will provide an overview of the project and describe the services in more detail. I'll write at greater length about the work that I have done, the work that we're in the middle of doing to translate content that come from various communities.  For now, let me quote the abstract from a project that we have started in this area that has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: Lack of interoperability among software systems and repositories from different domains is a major barrier to the exchange of digital content between communities.  This project will explore how semantic interoperability (the accurate translation of meaning) in the following four domains can be enhanced through the use of XSLT-based crosswalks between key XML specifications:  1) digital libraries and repositories (METS); 2) educational technologies and learning management systems (SCORM, IMS-Content Packaging (IMS-CP), and IMS-Metadata (IMS-MD)); 3) web syndication and portal technologies (RSS); and 4) desktop applications and structured content authoring tools. (e.g., Microsoft Office 11). The deliverables for this project are: Documented and refined crosswalks among METS, SCORM/IMS-CP, and RSS that will serve some immediate practical needs of interoperability among digital libraries, educational technologies, and web syndication systems Exploratory architecture and software prototypes for the deployment of crosswalks White papers summarizing our crosswalk investigations and relating the crosswalks to other approaches to semantic interoperability We will carry out this work in close collaboration with an Advisory Board of domain experts from the library and educational technology communities. This project will leverage the work of other collaborations in which the Interactive University Project (IU) is involved.  For example, we will soon commence a project with the California Digital Library (CDL) to explore how the resources of the CDL can be more effectively exposed via second generation web techniques.  Moreover, we expect to find substantial synergy between this project and our existing collaborations with faculty, research units, libraries, and museums on the Berkeley campus.   Posted by Raymond Yee on 5/27/03; 9:50:51 PM from the Web Technology dept. Discuss