Fixing GIS Data Discovery, Presenting GeoBlacklight
Jack Reed, Stanford University
Organizations spend time and money on creation and acquisition of geospatial data, yet it sits on hard drives, dvds, and shelves without a straightforward way for others to discover it. Discovery tools that do exist have usability issues that alienate users and prevent wide adoption. This has long been a problem not only for academic institutions but also other organizations who use and store geospatial data. We will present GeoBlacklight, a collaboratively designed and developed open source software for discovery of geospatial data. We will present current progress on GeoBlacklight, insights gained from our design process, and future developments.
Let It Go: Exposing Digital Collections for Accessible and Useful Data
Juliet Hardesty, Indiana University
How can you open data from a digital repository and make it discoverable, accessible, and combinable based on the researcher's needs? And how do you usefully combine digital repository, library catalog, and library web site data so researchers can collect, re-purpose, and re-mix the data in support of their research? This snapshot discusses both work completed to expose repository data and plans to combine that data with library catalog and web site data to create a Solr-indexed data source that preserves context and provides thorough, useful, and sharable access to the information, collections, and resources at the Indiana University Libraries.
Suma: Utilizing Emerging Browser Technology to Develop an Open-Source Space and Service Analytics System
Bret Davidson, North Carolina State University
Jason Casden, North Carolina State University
Web designers have long benefited from sophisticated usage analysis tools, however there are few tools to enable the same data-informed design and planning of physical spaces and services. Suma supports integrating observational data into these processes by streamlining existing data collection, providing rich data analysis and visualization capabilities for non-technical users, and promoting observational data analysis. Suma has encouraged the utilization of usage data in large and small planning processes for our libraries as well as over 40 pilot institutions. This talk will discuss how Suma informs space and service planning through the use of the latest web technologies.
RDFa Markup, Schema.org, and DBpedia Topics: A Closer Look at the Holy Trinity of Structured Data and their Impact on the Findability of Digital Collections
Jason Clark, Montana State University
In this snapshot session, we'll look at how structured data practices (e.g., RDFa markup applying Schema.org vocabularies and linking to DBpedia Topics) might enhance findability for digital collections. This research snapshot will build on the search engine optimization work at Montana State University (MSU) Library and consider a control digital collection that has not been optimized versus a digital collection that has been built with semantic topics & machine-actionable markup. Our community has an understanding of how to implement structured data; this session will look more closely at the question of why we should (or shouldn't) do it.
Make it Rain: Integrating Cloud Services and Local Development
William Ying, ARTstor
Shared Shelf, a cloud-based image/video cataloging and asset management service (a subscription service of Artstor), interoperates with various other components in library and pedagogical environment and is developing as a platform around which local programmers can build or implement other needed elements. This integration of Shared Shelf with local development efforts has allowed optimal balance of local and remote services. Shared Shelf exposes the metadata and digital assets through standard-compliant APIs; work with Harvard and Cornell has enabled dynamic harvesting between Shared Shelf cataloging utilities and institutional image and video repositories.
