I'm told that the semantic web isn't really a real web like the cobwebs hanging from the corners of the mud pit where I do my bathing. So I'm reassured that there is no giant flesh-eating spider at the center of the semantic web waiting to devour me, though I have dreamed this many times.
Instead, I'm told, the semantic web is a sophisticated system of information that will make meaningful connections for us, figuring out what we want, even if we don't say it directly. In other words, reading our minds. Somehow this frightens me even more than the giant spider.
But ready or not, here it comes.
So sez Mashable.
They say that Google is going to change the way we google, like today. They are launching their “Knowledge Graph”, which will nudge and wink at you, suggesting in a pop-up window, that they know what you mean when you type in an ambiguous or vague search term, such as "man cave."
According to Mashable, Ben Gomes of Google says Google is switching “from strings to things.” That is, over 500 million people, places and things, with 3.5 billion attributes.
Just recognizing keywords isn't enough. Now it's relationshipes, entities. Nodes.
And soon enough, the whole webby universe is bound to follow suit. Everything is about to change tremendously. Again. Just when I thought I was getting the knack of this place.
It's enough to make an unfrozen cavewoman librarian cry.
Showing posts with label librarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label librarian. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
WebScale
So many webinars, so little time. And so much unfamiliar lingo coming at me! You modern humans invent new words like you're inventing fire. Like your life depended on it.
Today I watched a webinar presented by that great god in the sky, OCLC. The webinar was titled "Your library at Webscale: How radical collaboration is redefining library management services." They kept throwing that word around: "webscale." At first I got excited, thinking they were talking about a mighty Hadrosaurs, a dinosaur known to my people, that had both scales and webbed feet...but then I realized they were just jawing about computers again.
The OCLC elders have created something called WorldShare Management Services that will help your library to be webscale. I still do not understand this word. But from what I could glean, which --with my primitive, undeveloped cave intellect, isn't much --a webscale library is the universal mind we have all been waiting for. It is a giant, throbbing brain, with arms that reach all the way around the earth ball.
If you want your library to throb like a smart brain, you must let go of the old ways. That ratty old ILS your library has isn't good enough anymore. It is soooo 2005. You may as well rip the computer out of the floor right now and make your patrons sift through a dusty old card catalog, because their searches will amount to the same thing, if you do not go webscale. This is what I learned in the webinar.
Today I watched a webinar presented by that great god in the sky, OCLC. The webinar was titled "Your library at Webscale: How radical collaboration is redefining library management services." They kept throwing that word around: "webscale." At first I got excited, thinking they were talking about a mighty Hadrosaurs, a dinosaur known to my people, that had both scales and webbed feet...but then I realized they were just jawing about computers again.
The OCLC elders have created something called WorldShare Management Services that will help your library to be webscale. I still do not understand this word. But from what I could glean, which --with my primitive, undeveloped cave intellect, isn't much --a webscale library is the universal mind we have all been waiting for. It is a giant, throbbing brain, with arms that reach all the way around the earth ball.
If you want your library to throb like a smart brain, you must let go of the old ways. That ratty old ILS your library has isn't good enough anymore. It is soooo 2005. You may as well rip the computer out of the floor right now and make your patrons sift through a dusty old card catalog, because their searches will amount to the same thing, if you do not go webscale. This is what I learned in the webinar.
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