[topicmapmail] Topic Maps and Libraries

[Alexander Johannesen]

On 5/12/07, Steve Pepper <pepper.steve at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll assume Alex Johannessen reads your post and responds directly. If not,
> seek him out. He is a Topic Maps expert who spent several years at the
> National Library in Australia.

I think we can assert this for sure. :) I've talked with Suellen
before; how did the TM talk go in the end?

Yeah, I'm still here, but there's not too much Topic Maps going on
here, apart from a few bits and pieces behind the scenes. I'd point to
http://nationaltreasures.nla.gov.au/ as an example of a fully TM
application, then there's a oral history project in the back-room
(where it's been for about two years) as well, and we were meaning to
make more of these kinds of mini-websites, but without going to go
into a political rap I'd just say that I'm not perticulary proud of
that site (at least, the purpose, visual direction and use of
metadata) apart from some of the backend.

At the library here we've been too far preoccupied with saving
ourselves from ourselves with a new infrastructure for, uh,
everything, which seems to have settled in the RESTful SOA area
somewhere. I've got a number of backend frameworks doing some heavy
lifting here, and a the main GUI pipeline has got Topic Maps support
built in (well, it's built on the TMRM, to put it that way) so I guess
you could say there's more coming, but I couldn't point out right now
what that might be.

> Finally, there's a company in Korea specializing in software for libraries
> that I know has been looking into the use of Topic Maps. Their name is INEK
> (www.inek.co.kr).

There's Conal Tuohy
(http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/NZETC-About-fig-staff_conal.html)
somewhere on this list who's also doing library stuff, although I
don't know his exact librarynessish these days. :)

I also am in talks with some librarians from a European country who's
creating a large Topic Maps based country-connecting portal of sorts,
but it's still terribly early days, which, as things go, can mean that
it might not go in this or that direction. I'll ask around if this is
info I can share.


Alex
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