Re: Transition to Community Group ?

I have not yet resonded to the call for comments on the LLD XG Final Report. Many of my thoughts on the report have already been raised by others (library vendors, what is the purpose of the report? etc), and perhaps one of my remaining issues can be summarized as answer to the suggestion on a transition to Community Group.

I think such a transition is a good idea, and agree that it's a good idea to involve parties from other domains. Personally, however, I have some concerns regarding a LAM group. Working at a university library, I spend 95% of my time thinking about scholarly infrastructure and how to connect traditional cataloguing practices with institutional repositories and scientific publications, bibliometrics, OA publishing, research data etc. When we do digitization and preservation, it's from a scholarly perspective rather than from a cultural heritage perspective. Working with scholarly publishing is also where we spend most, if not all, of the university library budget.

While I don't think publishing and scholarly infrastructure is incompatible with the interests of archives and museums, I also don't see it how the changing nature of scientific communication will be (or can be) addressed within a LAM CG. From a university perspective, I'd be much more interested in crossing over to the publishing domain. This is also where I find the best examples on projects where a linked data approach would be really beneficial: Link resolver knowledge base aggregation (see for example KBART, www.uksg.org/kbart, which would also be a great opportunity to have an interesting, practical discussion with library system vendors) and researcher identification (e.g. ORCID, ISNI, and possibly VIAF).

I don't have anything against a LAM CG as such. It's probably a useful to a lot of people. But to be blunt, I have little interest in working with library linked data from a cultural heritage perspective. Personally, I'd be much more interested in something like a Linked Data and Scholarly Infrastructure CG.

I know LD has been discussed in other scholarly infrastructure forums, like SITS, and I am not sure if there really is a need for a W3C community group. However, I think W3C could serve as a good forum to actually bring many different parties together. But maybe I am wrong about not being able to address scholarly infrastructure within a  LAM CG? I'd welcome any thoughts people on this list might have.

best regards
Anders Söderbäck


Anders Söderbäck
Teamleader І Dept. of e-resources

Stockholms University Library
Universitetsvägen 14 D
106 91 Stockholm
phone: +46 (0)8 16 27 79
cell: 073 460 48 74
anders.soderback@sub.su.se<mailto:anders.soderback@sub.su.se>
www.sub.su.se<http://www.sub.su.se/>

Från: Emmanuelle Bermes <manue@figoblog.org<mailto:manue@figoblog.org>>
Datum: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 18:15:14 +0200
Till: "public-lld@w3.org<mailto:public-lld@w3.org>" <public-lld@w3.org<mailto:public-lld@w3.org>>
Ämne: Transition to Community Group ?

As discussed during our 2011-05-12 telecon [1], where Harry Halpin was invited, the W3C has created a new type of groups, called community groups (CG).
CGs are expected to replace the previous incubator (XG) process ; actually, all living incubator groups were invited to transition to Community Groups.

The Library Linked Data XG has not transitioned though, mainly for 2 reasons :
- the XG was close to its end, even if we asked for a short extension, we still believe our work will be finished by the end of August;
- if we were to transition to CG, we feel that it should not be "only" a library CG, but a LAM CG (Libraries, Archives, Museums).

This topic was discussed during our 2011-06-30 telecon [2].
The minutes of this teleconference show that there is probably a consensus within the XG that we should transition to CG. While several local groups (like the ALA Linked Data Interest Group) or domain-specific groups (like the IFLA SW Special Interest Group) are being created, there is probably still a need for a more global initiative, and W3C can host such a global, cross-domain group. Moreover, CGs are not bound in time nor in members type (anyone can join) or number.

If the LLD XG is to transition to a LAM CG, that raises at least 2 issues :
- it would be necessary to draft a new charter (possibly based on or inspired by the LLD XG charter). It wouldn't be just transitionning, rather creating a new group as a result of the work of the XG.
- we would need new chair(s). While Antoine, Tom and myself have been very happy to chair the XG, and all 3 of us acknowledge that it a was a great experience and very much appreciate the commitment of the group members, it is not possible for the 3 of us to maintain the level of involvement that is needed to launch a group in the coming weeks.

For these reasons, we propose NOT TO transition the XG to community group right now. The creation of a LAM CG would be highly desirable, and we do support the idea. If anyone feels ready to volunteer to drive the creation of such a group, we will also be happy to help him/her/them with the W3C process and contacts.

Feedback from anyone on this list is very welcome.
Emmanuelle


[1] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/minutes/2011/05/12-lld-minutes.html

[2] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/minutes/2011/06/30-lld-minutes.html

Received on Monday, 8 August 2011 17:17:14 UTC