Talking about Web 3.0

This session grappled at trying to understand what Web 3.0 was and what it might mean for the library profession. (I) Lucia started the discussion off by reading part of her paper "Grasping at the Shifting Sands of Web Futures for Libraries" which I wrote to begin to articulate my own early understanding of what Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web referred to from having attended the ALIA Beyond the Hype Conference in February 2008 and from my own reading.  If you are interested in reading my paper where I raise some of the questions of Web 3.0 start at page 5.

One of the speakers at this conference was Dr Sherman Young who was effusive about the potential for the semantic web to enable the building of applications that can respond to peoples precise information needs.  The technological building blocks that support this are both the opening up of the silos of data and enhancements in the quality of the meta-data.  The latter is being supported by the work of the W3W consortium.   In my paper I explore questions about the commercialisation of the applications that would bring information together in meaningful ways and what this would mean for the principles of free access to information held by libraries.  For library IT professionals like Richard Wallis it is an important time for libraries to evolve to be a key player in the world of the semantic web and as Dr Young stressed it is a contested environment and so the nature of Web 3.0 will be dependent on the outcome of the competing social, economic and political interests.  

Please feel free if you were at the discussion to add any of your own recollections of points made.

Here are some links to some of the other speakers mentioned in my paper.

 Beyond the Hype Web 2.0 Symposium, Australian Library and Information Association: Queensland, Australia.

Young, S. Dr. 2008. ‘Beyond 2.0: songs from the geek chorus’

Updegrove, A. June 2005. "The semantic web: an interview with Tim Berners-Lee", Consortium Standards Bulletin,

 [Online] Available at: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/jun05.php#feature

Wallis, R. December 2007, ‘Microsoft evangelist John Udell interviews Talis’.

Talis Podcasts. [Online] Available at: http://www.talis.com/applications/resources/podcasts.shtml 

NB: This particular podcast no longer available but others about the semantic web are from the Talis site

There is another page on this wiki with Web 30 links which has pulled together some links about the semantic web.