Dr Mike Lowndes,

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An introduction to the Semantic Web for Museums
Presented at Museums and the Web 2006, Albuquerque

• Dr Mike Lowndes,
• Interactive Media Manager,
• Natural History Museum, London
• mikel_at_nhm.ac.uk

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The semantic web Contents

• Web futures context
• What is it?
• Web problems Digital objects and other issues
• Building blocks
• Steps along the way
• Current applications
• Other advances Web2.0
• Activity in the cultural sector
• Is it actually going to happen?
• Conclusions for Museums

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Web Futures

• We can be assured that
• Whatever we propose today, the future will be
  different.
• Technology progresses and conceptual thought
  keeps playing catch-up. New ideas supplant old.
• The future web will be as messy and tricky to
  predict as the past.
• So
• For Museum web users, we should strive toward a
  greater signal to noise ratio.

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Web futures Other Developments

• Web 2.0 web as application platform
• Convergence
• The web becomes more TV-like, but remains
  interactive and always available.
• More layers of information on more channels.
• It will become optionally immersive degrees of
  immersion depending on how you interact with it.
• Internet 2 www.Internet2.org
• Infrastructure, for massive bandwidth.
• Grid computing www.gridcomputing.com
• Shared processing increasing available power
  when connected.
• Computing power becoming a utility like
  electricity.
• Towards instant processing of everyday tasks (in
  the human timeframe).

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Web Futures Internet Ubiquity.

• All technological devices connected.
• The intelligent fridge, RFID, mobiles with GSM,
  GPRS, G3.
• Future mobile device operate your bank account,
  hifi and front door lock, turn the car heater on
  before you get to it these things are not that
  far away.
• The web is already old-school.
• We dont yet have a simple word for the continuum
  between digital radio, TV, the web, mobile
  internet, sms and multimedia kiosk interactions,
  though internet technology underpins it all.
• We can no longer limit our thinking to the needs
  of the desktop browser-based web.

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• Problems with the current Web

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Problems A Digital Object

• Digital object.

• Named Anomalocaris.
• Did that help?
• If we need help to make sense of many digital
  objects, Google needs even more.
• So A digital object should include or connect
  to the supporting data that allows both humans
  and machines to understand it.
• Answer The semantic web
• Provides a framework, standards and tools for
  attaching, extending, making available and
  understanding the meaning of digital objects.
• Makes the digital medium self-explaining.

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Problems the worst things about todays web?

• Its manual.
• Google is currently the most popular way to begin
  exploring a topic.
• It relies on humans to link sensibly to
  interesting and relevant content. This only works
  when a LOT of humans are making the links.
• Hyperlinks. They are dumb.
• They do not explain themselves.
• Can you trust them?
• When you create them, you need to keep validating
  them.
• Searching for new links to make requires a search
  engine.
• Metadata can improve this, but metadata is poorly
  used.
• Answer The semantic web

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Problems how many logins do you have?

• Bank1
• Bank2
• Sharedealing
• Work VPN
• Basecamp
• Amazon
• eBay
• eBuyer
• Picstop
• Flickr
• Email 1
• Email 2
• Etc.
• What about an infrastructure that allows you to
  log on to the internet just once?
• Answer The semantic web.

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Some Web Issues For Museums

• People trust online museums content and their
  links more than others, perhaps.
• But our knowledge and collections are not easily
  available for the public, as a single
  collection relevant to their needs.
• This requires breaking down the digital walls
  between institutions digital access,
  interoperability, flexible context.
• Interoperability is a difficult thing.
• Our metadata is easy to publish, but nothing out
  there uses it to improve searching.
• Attempts are being made (e.g. OAI-PMH)
• GBIF
• Other portals
• Answer The semantic web.

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• Definitions and goals.

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The Semantic Web

• Tim Berners-Lee Web Visionary and head of W3C.
• Formally set off in 1998 Goal is the solution to
  information overload and the personalisation of
  the web.
• Adding logic to the web
• If youre 38 and some available content is aimed
  at six year-olds, then its not appropriate to
  prioritise display (unless youre searching for
  your kids). This kind of logic is built into the
  semantic web.
• Turning the web into a global database
• Semantic web software should be able to find,
  sort, classify, interpret, and present relevant
  content in context.
• Achieved via global use of metadata leading to
  vastly improved browsing, and agents which may
  seem intelligent because they can process a web
  that describes itself.

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W3C Definition

• Tim Berners-Lee
• The Semantic Web is an extension of the current
  Web in which information is given well-defined
  meaning, better enabling computers and people to
  work in cooperation.
• For the Web to become a truly machine-readable
  resource, the information it contains must be
  structured in a logical, comprehensible and
  transparent fashion.
• This is the primary work required to enable the
  semantic web.

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The Building Blocks

• How do we get there?

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What the Semantic Web Will Require

• Adoption of metadata standards.
• Usable tools for automatic and semiautomatic
  multilingual knowledge mark-up.
• Modelling relationships. E.g between types of
  metadata.
• Construction of ontologies (and mappings between
  them).
• Stay awake!
• Plus, intelligent agents to mine the above for
  a particular persons needs.
• Defining a particular person requires a user
  profile.

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Boxes And Arrows No Clouds!
Context
User profile
Other ontologies
Maps to
User query, or query generated by user behaviour
Semantic Web Agent
Maps to and is constrained by
Identified ontologies

• Accurate,
• meaningful
• Answers
• Actions
• Views of information

• A digital object

Associated metadata
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W3C Current Semantic Web Work (2006)

• A roadmap.
• Two formal XML technologies are now part of the
  first generation semantic web
• RDF for holding and communicating the metadata.
• OWL for describing relationships and inferring
  meaning.

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W3C Semantic Web RoadMap
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1. XML

• XML underpins the next step.
• It can describe the 'data' on the web by wrapping
  that data in tags that explain it.
• E.g.ltproductgtltfruitgtorangelt/fruitgtltpricegt20lt/price
  gtltcurrencygtgbplt/currencygtlt/productgt
• XML is a framework.
• Ad-hoc files can be created in it for specific
  uses, using any tags you like.
• There is no need to formally describe them unless
  you want them to be understood outside your
  particular use.

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XML Languages for Describing Content

• You can formalise a tag set written in XML by
  creating a config file for it, known as a
  Document Type Definition, or more recently, a
  Schema.
• e.g.
• Summary Metadata Dublin Core and its
  derivatives.
• Data Markup Encoded Archival Description, RSS.
• XML can also format and transform itself with XML
  stylesheets XSL/XSLt.
• Formal XML languages underpin the semantic web.
• XML over the internet enables machine-tomachine
  communication.

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2. RDF Resource Description Framework

• W3C supports the development of the Resource
  Description Framework .
• RDF is the official current encoding format for
  semantic web data.
• Can contain data, metadata and relationships.
• E.g. Dublin Core, RSS.
• Make web resources self-describing.
• RDF-S (a more recent development)
• Schema provides some ontology support to RDF.
• E.g. Simple DC file

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3. Ontologies - OWL

• W3C supports the development of the Web Ontology
  Language,usually abbreviated as OWL.
• What is an ontology?
• A dictionary defines the meaning of words.
• A taxonomy or classification system describes
  hierarchical relationships between things but not
  usually other kinds of relationships.
• A thesaurus deals with wider relationships
  between words but meaning by inference only.
• Ontologies join taxonomies and thesauri together
  and can derive logic and inference
  relationships of meaning.
• OWL is the latest iteration of this idea as
  applied to the web.
• It is a vocabulary extension of RDF not
  something different.

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Brainbreak - FenFire

• Ouch, my brain hurts.

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Definitions and Properties of an Ontology

• James Hendler
• a set of knowledge terms, including the
  vocabulary, the interconnections in meaning, and
  some simple rules of inference and logic for some
  particular topic.
• DigiCULT
• The most typical kind of ontology for the Web
  has a taxonomy and a set of inference rules.
• What does it do? Describes relationships between
  data.
• TBL
• An ontology may express the rule "If a city code
  is associated with a state code, and an address
  uses that city code, then that address has the
  associated state code.
• the functionality of a database (query) and a
  thesaurus (meaning by context).

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How Will Ontologies Be Used In The Semantic Web?

• Ontologies can be domain-oriented, task-oriented,
  application-oriented or general purpose. Also
  called class taxonomies.
• Upper Ontologies are more general and can tie
  more specific ones together by mapping them.
• e.g. How can we make a machine understand that
  watercolours are linked to jewellery
  semantically?
• Concept of watercolour links to a definition
  URI (url).
• Local ontology watercolour is a type of
  painting.
• Local ontology necklace is a type of
  jewellery.
• Upper ontology painting and jewellery are
  both types of art.
• Someone needs to build these mappings.
• Now, do it all again in multiple languages

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A lot of talk

• Foundational ontologies - shared understanding,
  providing intended meaning of a vocabulary.
• Completeness, precision and overlap between
  ontologies agreement on all are needed for
  'establishing consensus'.
• Gets philosophical very quickly
• is a hole different from the region of space it
  occupies? I.e. Are there holes, or only holed
  objects?
• Is a statue different from the stuff it is
  constituted by? I.e. Are there statues or only
  statue-shaped stuffs?
• Is a person different from their body?
• Ontologies - There will be a lot of them

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W3C Semantic Web RoadMap
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Higher layers of the Roadmap

• Rules layer - early stage work
• Initial proposals to provide standardised
  languages for the querying of RDF SPARQL -
  Joseki query engine.
• Experiments with rule languages RuleML
• Proof
• Authority, encryption
• Trust
• (PICS)
• Profiles
• FOAF friend of a friend. EARL

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Long Term Agents

• DigiCULT
• Agents are the final product of the semantic
  web automatic, even artificially intelligent
  software that does all your searching for you
  (the process of narrowing down) and much more.
  However, this is a very long term goal and there
  are many steps on the way, each of which can
  help.
• Examples
• The agent attached to your diary automatically
  organises travel etc, and can change your travel
  tickets when you alter your diary.
• The agent attached to your house automatically
  organises food purchasing, bill payment,
  lighting, heating, alarms etc.

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Visual navigation of ontology (Sculpteur)

• Visualising RDF metadata An aid for Museum
  professionals, not the public.
• Addis, M., et al., New Ways to Search, Navigate
  and Use Multimedia Museum Collections over the
  Web, Figure 3, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.).
  Museums and the Web 2005 Proceedings, CD-ROM
  ISBN 1-885626-31-2 Toronto Archives Museum
  Informatics, March 31, 2005

(right click/click-hold (Mac) for notes)
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Boxes, arrows and Acronyms
Context
User profile
OWL
FOAF/ EARL
Other ontologies
Maps to
User query, or query generated by user behaviour
RDF-S/ OWL (CIDOC-CRM, SKOS)
SPARQLRuleML
Semantic Web Agent
Maps to and is constrained by
Identified ontology

• Accurate,
• meaningful
• Answers
• Actions
• Views of information

RDF (DC, RSS)

• A digital object

Associated metadata
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• Q. Why isnt the semantic web here?
• A. Its hard to do.

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• Steps along the way

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Short Term some current applications

• Making digital resources self-describing
• RSS in RDF
• Was rich site summary, now really simple
  syndication - making simple summary information
  self-describing.
• Mobile devices CC/PP.
• called Composite Capability/Preference Profile
  (CC/PP).
• will let cell phones and other non- standard Web
  clients describe their characteristics to other
  software and agents.
• Business XBRL.
• describes/classifies content of financial
  statements.
• makes report generation easier.
• FOAF
• Friend of a Friend.
• Describes people and their interests, plus
  network of peers.
• www.foaf-project.org/
• Topic Maps.
• A framework for creating and browsing
  relationships.
• Works within and between between systems and
  disciplines.
• Works with RDF.
• Human friendly relatively easy to grasp how it
  works -browsers are in development.

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Haystack (MIT) an RDF-PIM
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Medium Term e.g. 'smart links'

• As semantic content appears browsers can be
  modified to use it.
• On mouseover.
• Metadata of target.
• More information on evolution.
• Multiple targets.
• More information on evolution.
• These do not even need to be defined as links
  simply highlighting words could initiate the
  semantic web browser.
• Its automatic for the people.
• As well as smart links more and more local
  domains of knowledge will be related by their
  linking ontologies. More semantic portals will
  appear.

Author the Natural History Museum, London. Date
published July 2005. Description A website
exploring evolution by natural selection. Audience
12 years plus. Language English
(international).
Link definition of evolution. Link evolution at
the Natural History Museum. Link evolution at
the American Museum of Natural History. Link
Evolution on god.com. Link evolution at New
Scientist magazine. Definition Evolution part
of natural history. Browse evolution.
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Magpie IE plugin (Open University)
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• So nothing practical even yet?
• (Semagix can you afford it?)
• Semantic web portals?

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An aside? The Web 2.0 tag cloud or folksonomy
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Web 2.0 the Web as Application platform

• - first uses social networking, content
  authoring and sharing, real-time GIS, feedback
• Flickr
• Google Maps / Earth
• Del.icio.us (bookmarking)
• Technorati (blog-tracking)
• Wikipedia
• Basecamp, ACEproject
• Blogger
• Open source frameworks (e.g. Drupal)
• Amazon, Yahoo

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AJAX

• Advanced javascript to send / receive content and
  update parts of pages, using XML over the web
• can use other messaging formats as well
• thus getting around another issue with the
  web from the start pages being static.
• Real-time response to user input
• i.e. approaching true desktop applications on the
  web.
• Beyond the original Berners-Lee vision?
• Examples
• Google Maps (map data)
• Basecamp (saving changes/state without reloading
  pages)
• Writely (word processor for online collaboration)
• Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year

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Social Tagging (folksonomies)

• The old Yahoo / Google (DMOZ) directories method
  of classifying sites is hardly used as a search
  aid
• also ungainly, complex and impossible to maintain
• 'tagging' is communities of web users freely
  keywording their content
• These sites then use popularity and associations
  of keywords to infer relevance/closeness of
  meaning
• http//www.flickr.com/photos/tags/family/clusters/
  
• provides a simple way to group content
• What about specialist knowledge?
• Specialist knowledge fewer people worse
  tagging?
• Go visit the steve project

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RSS

• Newsfeed reading via Really Simple Syndication is
  now huge
• a simple but structured way to syndicate
  information or broadcast change
• A subscription model people get the information
  they want delivered to them as it is generated
• Gets around an original web turnoff having to
  revisit favourite sites regularly.
• Content from many sources can be aggregated into
  themed feeds
• Use of truly semantic ideas is at an early stage,
  
• RDF is extensible
• will improve as the sheer number of newsfeeds
  requires new layers of interpretation.
• Will be embedded in next generation operating
  systems
• e.g. 24 Hour Museum

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Web2.0 and the Semantic Web

• Joshua Allen, 2001 (Making a Semantic Web)
• Until anyone can create metadata about any page
  and share it with everyone there will not be a
  semantic web
• Web 2.0?!
• Web 2.0 is NOT a new infrastructure for the web.
• It wont do the job of providing the global
  database.
• It does take steps in the right direction.

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• What has the cultural sector done?
• Done? this is mostly old stuff.

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We Have A Role.

• Were are the holders of knowledge and authority,
  and can help to define the semantic web.
• Thesauri owned and created by Museums could
  become ontologies and act as part of the
  backbone.
• Museums are behind and will remain behind as
  other areas see competitive advantage business,
  commerce and research.
• DigiCULT Thematic issue 3, 2003 museums need
  to take a lead. We need to do a big project
  together Standardise thesauri, develop
  ontologies.

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Infrastructure The CIDOC Conceptual Reference
Model

• A common language and extensible semantic
  framework to which any cultural heritage
  information can be mapped. The interoperability
  glue.
• Provides the words and relationships we can
  use to map our stuff together.
• I.e. an agreed framework for our ontologies
• An international standard.
• Exposed in RDF already RDF-S/OWL to follow?
• http//cidoc.ics.forth.gr/
• For an introduction, download
• http//www.rlg.org/en/downloads/2002metadata/gill/
  gill.PPT

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Portal example Sculpteur

• Several collections brought together into one
  place, one meta database or portal.
• Content from the VA among others.
• Visual display of relationships.
• A published ontology in RDF.
• Concept-based searching based on a semantic
  network.
• Content-based searching of images and 3d models.
• http//www.sculpteurweb.org/ (Browser needs
  downloading)

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Richard Light Museum thesauri in Topic Maps

• Ontology framework written to thesaurus
  standards.
• Museum thesauri turned into ontologies in Topic
  Map format.
• Topic Map browser (Omnigator) a visual
  environment.
• Aims to provide meaning an authoritative
  reference that software can use when searching
  the web.
• Could become part of the future semantic web
  backbone.
• Topic Map / RDF interoperability now a focus at
  W3C
• Museums Computer Group Newsletter, April 2004.

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VICODI Visual Contextualization of Digital
Content

• semi-automatic creation of contextual semantic
  metadata for digital historical resources, by
  users.
• Visualisation of richly structured,
  contextualised content.
• Interface uses historical maps and colour-coded
  links.
• Felt to be not generally usable in hindsight by
  the developers, but still in some development.
• http//www.vicodi.org/

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VICODI powered (http//www.eurohistory.net/Index
.do)
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Finnish Museums on the Semantic Web

• The most ambitious and realised attempt.
• Uses RDF encoded Dublin Core metadata.
• Brings 15 Museum collections together.
• Difficult to assess as it is in Finnish, but has
  good critical reports from users.
• A semantic web HTML generator is in development.
• http//museosuomi.cs.helsinki.fi/

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Finnish Museums on the Semantic Web
All the right buzzwords in all the right places.
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Finnish Museums on the Semantic Web
(right click/click-hold (Mac) for notes)
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Finnish Museums on the Semantic Web
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Swed-E

• Env Dir

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First generation sites

• Expose the workings of the semantic web too much
• Not simple enough for most web users
• But work is ongoing.
• http//cipher.uiah.fi/project/trials/mapsvisu/one_
  visu/ihala_monsters_1024.jpg

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Coda Reality Check

• Is the semantic web the right approach to
  information overload?

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Nay-sayers?

• DigiCULT Janneke Van Kersen, Dutch Digital
  Heritage Association.
• I do not believe in developing a fundamental
  ontology to give meaning to information on the
  Net. It looks to me like the 18th-century
  endeavour to write an encyclopaedia that contains
  all the knowledge in the world. I am afraid it
  does not work that way. A lot of knowledge, even
  scientific knowledge, cannot be described in a
  logical way. Especially in the arts a lot of
  knowledge is the result of heuristics and
  associative thinking.
• Patel-Schneider and Siméon, Bell Labs Research.
• there is a semantic discontinuity at the very
  bottom of the Semantic Web, interfering with the
  stated goal of the Semantic Web If semantic
  languages do not respect World-Wide Web data,
  then how can the semantic web be an extension of
  the World-Wide Web at all?

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Then its impossible?

• TBL sees the Semantic Web as based upon a whole
  bunch of ontologies mapped together.
• Instead of asking machines to understand
  peoples language, ask people to make the extra
  effort
• It is acknowledged that this is a vast and
  difficult thing to do.
• The tools are not yet there.
• The consensus.
• Its hard to do, not easy like the current web.
• Its utopian but the main goals are achievable.
• It will be a part of the future web, but never
  all of it.
• Any movement towards it increases the signal to
  noise ratio of the web.
• It should and will be done where it can be.
• Better for formalised knowledge anyway, informal
  knowledge can associate loosely or closely

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Who will use it?

• Initially it will be used by the formal web.
• commerce
• b2b
• research
• education
• institutions
• The informal web (most blogs/wikis, personal
  pages, link sets etc) will benefit from the work,
  and buy in at some levels.
• Consider the speed of technological advance
• Other things will come along.

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Conclusions for Museums

• DigiCult
• The Semantic Web is a direction, it is like
  North. You go North but you never arrive and say
  here it is.
• Its going to be a large scale, collaborative,
  community thing.
• Requires leadership and opportunity from the
  State.
• We can and should make more starts now.
• There are many valuable steps on the way.
• It can make what you have to say far more
  accessible to those people who want to know.

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Further Reading

• Tim Berners-Lee
• BERNERS-LEE,T., J. HENDLER, O. LASSILA The
  Semantic Web A new form of Web content that is
  meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution
  of new possibilities Scientific American, 17 May
  2001.
• http//www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID0004814
  4-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21
• DigiCULT
• Themed Issue 3 Towards a Semantic Web for
  Heritage Resources, May 2003.
• http//www.digicult.info/pages/themiss.php
• For more references please refer to the
  associated paper .

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Thank you