Abstract
Fired, fueled and affected by the engine of new information technologies and their transformative power, we have been increasingly witnessing the emergence and diffusion of digital phenomena including the Internet as well as the Web in different contexts (e.g. libraries). As a result, regardless of so many emerging revolutions, evolutions, and transformations in the context of libraries, the traditional roles of librarians have also considerably changed. There are many articles that within their title or content, the phrase ‘the changing role of…’ has been used. This emphasizes that 21st century librarians should be developing in line with emerging changes and new horizons to meet users’ miscellaneous information needs, particularly when one of the main global challenges is to build a society where everyone can access and share information, enabling individuals and communities to achieve their full potential in promoting their development and improving their quality of life (Aqili and Isfandyari-Moghaddam, 2008). On the other hand, many persons, whether natural or legal like researchers, governments, industries and so on, are trying to mark up their information via their own websites or digital repositories so that they can be more visible and influential. This ‘web of data’ – which includes data that is structured in a machine-readable format, and has been published openly on the web (p.x) – is of undeniable value, both economic and social. Inspired by the first law of Ranganathan (1931)- namely ‘Books are for use’ and the idea ‘Information is for use, whatever its format’ - the book Facilitating Access to the Web of Data: A Guide for Librarians takes such idea(s) a step further, arguing that ‘Data is for use, whatever its format’. In a word, as Yamazaki (2007) claims ‘we [librarians] must redesign our service menu for our customers through thinking functionally. Under the present conditions where the Internet has become very popular as a means for everyone to have access to information, it is important for us to concentrate the service focus on the services which can be provided only by libraries or information professionals…’.
Stuart values as well as reminds us of the pivotal role and place of librarians and information professionals in bridging the divide between users and data that is being produced and made available on the Web. According to the author, the aim of this book is to provide an introduction to the web of data for the library and information professional, emphasizing: the importance of open data; the broad spectrum of individuals and organizations publishing the data; the meaning of semantic data and its advantages; the various publishing formats that are being used; and most importantly, the role of library and information professionals as facilitators of access to this web of data (p. ix). This seven-chapter work begins with the concepts ‘Open data’ as a result of numerous individuals and organizations (e.g. academia, government, industry and the library community) interested in data being made publicly available for several reasons, and ‘Open science’, defined as making methodologies, data and results available on the internet, through transparent working practices; using the potential of the web to move beyond the limitations of traditional technologies (p.3).
Then, looking at the first carriers of open data viz. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 along with their families (i.e. search tools, social networks, tagging, etc), the book deals with the next generation of Web, i.e. Web 3.0 as a semantic web, one that is meaningful to computers. As well as new web-based tools, issues, and standards for classifying, structuring, storing and preserving, retrieving, and giving available information meaning online, Stuart discusses some related ones like data silos, application programming interfaces (APIs), RDF (resource description framework), Linked Data, embedded semantics and so forth. The masterpiece of the book is its sixth chapter entitled ‘The library and the web of data’ in which, considering the provision of data services as a natural extension to the information services that librarians already offer, Ranganathan’s (1931) Five Laws of Library Science (i.e. ‘books are for use’, ‘every reader their book’, ‘every book its reader’, ‘save the time of the reader’, and ‘the library is a growing organism’) are re-expressed in connection with the web of data. Accordingly, five web or data-related laws - ‘data is for use’, ‘every user their data’, ‘every data its user’, ‘save the time of the user’, and ‘the web of data is a growing organism’ - are put forward and debated.
Stuart’s book ends with a futuristic discussion talking about the future of the librarian and the web of data. Totally, this instructive and educational work has a logical sequence by which interesting points are indicated. In my opinion, the general formation of the book can be interpreted in line with Ranganathan’s fifth law ‘the library is a growing organism’, meaning that nowadays, libraries and their resources, librarians and their functions, LIS and its aspects, and users and their expectations are growing organisms or entities. So, both libraries and especially librarians are increasingly shouldering heavy responsibilities to keep themselves up with the emerging dynamic fields such as web of data. The author implicitly emphasises that librarians should confirm themselves in theory and practice through their knowledge, skills and being flexible, changing their attitude and role towards the new environment of the web of data.
The book is recommended for many persons who directly or indirectly handle or deal with the wealth of the web of data (librarians including systems and data librarians, archivists, technology-minded staff, computer staff, managers, web developers and optimizers, end-users, and LIS students, professors, and researchers). Reading such a book (which in turn can be considered as a stride towards realizing the theme of 78th IFLA Conference ‘Libraries Now: Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering’ http://www.ifla.org/ifla78) will be rewarding to an unexpected degree. It is your choice!