1. SIMILE Objectives, Current Status, and Demonstration Stephen J. Garland, MIT CSAIL Mick Bass, HP Labs DSpace User Group Meeting Cambridge, MA March 11, 2004

2. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 2 Simile Goals Make the Semantic Web a reality For libraries and their users Support heterogeneous, multi-community metadata Provide tools for viewing, browsing, searching Assess current state of Semantic Web Explore utility of standards (RDF, RDFS, OWL) Extend Semantic Web tool stack for libraries Identify issues, gaps, opportunities, best practices for digital libraries

3. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 3 Current State of Affairs Library perspective Large amounts of metadata in catalogs Different schemas (DC, VRA, site specific) Varying amount, quality of metadata User perspective Multitude of site-specific tools Hard to switch from one domain to another Hard to search across domains

4. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 4 Simile Objectives Reduce effort, time spent by librarians, users Provide contextual views of data Allow serendipitous discovery Via flexible semantic web infrastructure Value added by incremental, recombinant metadata Without custom development for new schemas

5. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 5 Simile Participants MIT Libraries DSpace, DSpace Federation MacKenzie Smith, PI W3C Semantic Web Activity Eric Miller, PI Hewlett-PackardRDF Technologies Mick Bass, PI MIT CSAIL Haystack Project David Karger, PI

6. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 6 Simile: Current Status Sample data repositories ARTstor: visual images (VRA Core metadata) OCW: MIT OpenCourseWare (IMS LOM metadata) Metadata transformed into RDF using XSLT ARTstor ↔ OCW mapping established using OWL Tools For manipulating RDF: Jena For browsing, searching: Longwell, Haystack Illustrated by sample scenario

7. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 7 Scenario: Creating an Art Course Goal: create course on abstract art Shape, flesh out course Track down resources (e.g., images) Leverage thought, work by others (e.g., in OCW) Approach: faceted browse of diverse collections

8. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 8 Step 1: Getting Started 3 OCW courses Let’s start by clicking here Facets for browsing 787 OCW resources 2384 ARTSTOR resources

9. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 9 Step 2: Exploring One Collection Let’s click to focus on an early abstract artist 137 images on island

10. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 10 Step 3: Pausing to Think Narrow focus raises questions: What else did Gorky do? Who was doing similar work? Let’s click to find out more about Gorky by removing a restriction

11. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 11 Step 4: Redirecting the Search Two islands in view now, linked by Gorky bridge Let’s click to cross bridge

12. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 12 Step 5: Exploring a 2nd Collection We found an image not in the ARTstor collection! Let’s look for information about another artist Now on OCW island

13. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 13 Step 6: Exploring it Further Let’s look for Graham on the OCW island And click to move to that part of the island

14. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 14 Step 7: Back to the 1st Collection Let’s take a different bridge back

15. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 15 Step 8: The View from the Bridge Scroll down to see the rest

16. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 16 Step 9: The View from the Bridge Both islands are in view!

17. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 17 Recap of Scenario Started on ARTstor island SUBJECT: Abstract Roamed around island SUBJECT: Abstract, CREATOR: Gorky Traveled over Gorky bridge to OCW island CREATOR: Gorky, IS PART OF:... Found resource not on ARTstor island Traveled over Graham bridge To another part of ARTstor island

18. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 18 Simile Beyond this Scenario Necessary to scale in multiple dimensions Tools for creating, improving metadata Quality of current metadata could be better Tools, guidelines for creators should help So would “use” metadata: click logs, synaptic pathways Tools for storing, querying metadata Horizontal scaling: increasing quantities of data Vertical scaling: levels of metadata

19. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 19 Simile and DSpace DSpace assets Interesting, fruitful islands of metadata Metadata for navigating around each island Experience letting users see, discover what they want Simile assets Semantic web tools for digital libraries Potential Simile, DSpace collaboration Increase quantity, quality of existing metadata Develop inexpensive metadata “best practices”

20. DSpace User GroupSimile OverviewSlide 20 Potential Impact Enlarged community of metadata creators Catalogers, users, automated agents, … New bridges between diverse collections Created incrementally by adding new metadata Improved navigation across diverse collections Using new pathways created by new metadata Stay tuned! Visit simile.mit.edusimile.mit.edu