Maps, dictionaries and guidebooks

Interoperability in heterogeneous library data landscapes Libraries have to deal with a highly opaque landscape of heterogeneous data sources, data types, data formats, data flows, data transformations and data redundancies, which I have earlier characterized as a “data maze”. The level and magnitude of this opacity and heterogeneity varies with the amount of content types and the number of services that the library is responsible for. Academic and national libraries are possibly dealing with more […]

Do we need mobile library services? Not really

Mobile services have to fulfill information needs here and now Like many other libraries, the Library of the University of Amsterdam released a mobile web app this year. For background information about why and how we did it, have a look at the slideshow my colleague Roxana Popistasu and I gave at the IGeLU 2010 conference.For now I want to have a closer look at the actual reception and use of our mobile library services […]

Dutch Culture Link

Linking library and cultural heritage data “Interested to publishing a test collection as linked open data to help @StichtingDEN with practical guide for heritage institutions?” That’s what my former colleague at the Library of the University of Amsterdam, now project manager at DEN (Digital Heritage Foundation The Netherlands), Marco Streefkerk asked me in April 2010. Was I interested? Of course I was. I had written a blog post “Linked data for libraries” almost a year […]