Semantic Web: Readings

The original article describing the semantic web:

Berners-Lee, Tim; James Hendler and Ora Lassila (May 17, 2001). "The Semantic Web". Scientific American Magazine. Retrieved March 26, 2008.

Relevant documents and pages at the World Wide Web Consortium site:

Berners-Lee, Tim. Linked Data design issues.

Readings for librarians:

• Understanding the Semantic Web: Bibliographic Data and Metadata, by Karen Coyle. ALA Library Technology Reports, January, 2010
• RDA Vocabularies for a Twenty-first Century Data Environment, by Karen Coyle. ALA Library Technology Reports, February, 2010
• Linked Data Tools: Connecting on the Web, by Karen Coyle. ALA Library Technology Reports, May/June, 2012. v. 48, n.4

A selection of books:

Semantic web for the working ontologist by Dean Allemang, 2008, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers/Elsevier

If you are comfortable with general metadata concepts and perhaps some database management technologies, then this is a good first book on Semantic Web metadata concepts. It's not really for beginners, but I can't find anything that is truly for beginners. So expect to struggle a bit, but the information here is solid.

Semantic Web Programming, by John Hebeler, et al. Indianapolis, Ind., Wiley, 2009. ISBN:9780470418017

Although this is in the end a book for programmers, the first half talks about Semantic Web concepts and standards without requiring any programming expertise. So you can learn about RDF, OWL, and see examples of uses. If you program, then the book also gets you started with some of the current Semantic Web tools: Protege, Jena and Pellet.

Semantic Web for Dummies, by Jeffrey T. Pollock. Wiley, 2009

In this case, the "dummy" is a fairly seasoned programmer with good skills in relational databases and object-oriented programming. So if your tech skills are good, this book will give you a lot of practical information, relating it to things you already know. It also is aimed at the business world, where terms like "enterprise" are frequently used. Although that might be a bit strange for library folks, Pollock addresses issues relating to scalability, search optimization, and the types of technical skills that are essential in this new environment.