opening hours RDF cal use case

(I was going to talk about this in the IRC chat but I figured an 
email might be a bit more coherent)

RDF calendar for small business opening hours Use Case
======================================================

I think Greg Fitzpatrick has done a lot of thinking on this topic. I don't 
have a handy pointer to prior writeups though.

I understand the RDF calendar vocab at http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/ 
now has a representation of recurring events. Here's a use case that 
emphasises RDF's strong points: data mixing.

I would like to use RDF calendar 'recurring events' to represent opening 
hours of shops and other services. In particular I'm interested in using the 
Semantic Web to support local small businesses, by mixing descriptions of 
their opening hours with other useful information: homepage of shop, 
opening hours, contact info, photograph of premises, lat/lang/alt location
information, some indication of product lines and individual items for sale.

I think I've a handle on how to do most everything except the calendar stuff.

Here's an example, any help with expressing their opening hours in RDF 
would be greatly appreciated!

http://www.tuftslife.com/dining/menuview.php?ID=00029&pg=4
(from a restaurant info aggregator)

This lists the menus and other info for local restaurants here in 
Somerville, MA USA.  The menus are currently images of paper menus, so 
there is scope for progress there. See also http://chefmoz.org/rdf.html
for more RDF/food work.

The bit I'm currently interested in is this:

It says, 'Currently [OPEN]', based on info about opening hours. Their 
summary for the 'Urban Gourmet' place around the corner from here:

	[[
	Monday      Closed
	Tuesday      4:00pm - 11:00pm
	Wednesday      11:30am - 11:00pm
	Thursday      11:30am - 11:00pm
	Friday      11:30am - 11:00pm
	Saturday      11:30am - 11:00pm
	Sunday      11:30am - 11:00pm
	]]

So longwinded question unpacked: how do I express this in RDF? Can we 
use recurrence rules expressed over ical in RDF as the basis? Is extra 
vocab needed?

thanks for any suggestions,

Dan

Received on Wednesday, 12 March 2003 12:28:43 UTC