- Digital libraries have traditionally focused on providing open access to content and metadata standards, but have underplayed the importance of social networks and platforms. - As the web becomes more social in nature, with research and learning also being social activities, digital libraries need to shift their focus from just content to relationships between people and supporting social interactions. - By providing open and linked content, digital libraries can create a platform to enable social behaviors like content sharing and reuse, rather than just focusing on one-way content delivery through channels.

1. Image: Jenser (Clasix-Design) @ FlickrOpen, social and linkedA ménage à trois of content exploitationAndy Powell, Eduservwww.eduserv.org.uk/researchtwitter.com/andypowe11UKSG, HarrogateApril 2011

2. Overview/ will argue that we have tended to underplay the importance of social networks in our provision of library and academic publishing services/ and, in fact, in the development of digital library services more generally/ and that emphasis on providing open and linked content provides platform for social activityImage: Niecieden@ Flickr

3. Attitude/ our behaviour is being changed/ the web is now a social construct/ research and learning are social activities/ ditto cultural heritageImage: still from The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch

4. residents vs. visitorsImage: bartmaguire@ Flickr/ a visitor is “an individual who uses the web as a tool in an organised manner whenever the need arises”/ a resident is “an individual who lives a percentage of their life online”David White, University of Oxford – TALL Blog/ note: attitude rather than capability/ in digital libraries, we have tended to focus on visitors

5. channels vs. platformsImage: akhr1961 @ Flickr/ content should be ‘of’ the web rather than ‘on’the web/ huh? what does that mean?/ again, it’s about attitude/ an expectation of re-use/ think platform rather than channel

6. In digital libraries…/ in digital librarieswe have a long (and pre-digital) heritage/ we tend to focus on contentand descriptions of content/ and moving collections of those descriptionsfrom providers to consumers/ such that they can be searched and browsedor otherwise displayed to individualsImage: spike55151 @ Flickr

7. StandardsImage: BEUTELTIERE @ Flickr/ we’re quite good at standards…/ particularly those that focus on metadata (MARC, MODS, DC, ORE, etc.)/ and identifiers for the content/ and protocols (OAI-PMH, Z39.50, SRW, etc.)/ and OpenURL, …

8. Access control/ because some (most?) content has not been freely availablewe also focus on access control/ standards like SAML/ software like Shibboleth or OpenAthensImage: spodzone@ Flickr

9. People and identityImage: Jenser (Clasix-Design) @ Flickr/ commonly still a focus on one-way flow of information/ increasing interest in relationshipsbetween stuff and people/ but usually with a content-centric view/ still little real interest in relationships between people/ which means that ‘identity’ issues normally focus on“that is you, that is what you are allowed to do”/ whereas on the social web, the emphasis is different“this is me, this is what I’ve done”

10. Openness aside (1)/ being open is all about enabling re-use/ cultural conditions for openness don’t emerge overnight/ as we are finding with learning objects,research papersand probably dataImage: dullhunk@ Flickr

11. Openness aside (1)Image: tk-link @ Flickr/ UKRDS survey of staff representing 700 researchers (2009).../ 43% expressed need to see other’s research data/ most share data in some form (informally with peers)/ but only 12% share via existing formal data centres

12. Openness aside (2)/ need to distinguish ‘open’ from ‘free’/ aspects of Amazon service are ‘open’ but content paid-for/ contrast with current difficulty determining which e-books are made available by which publishershttp://ebookfinder.labs.eduserv.org.uk

13. The social web/ typical characteristics of social websites/ concentration and diffusionLorcan Dempsey, OCLC Lorcan Dempsey’s Blog/ exposure at the item level/ focus on social interaction - both within the network and across other networks

14. Contrast with repositories/ contrast with repository activity/ mis-match between repository architecture and real-world social networks/ emphasis on ‘shelving’ content rather than social behaviour/ uncompelling value offer to end-users/ result… the need for mandates to fill what would otherwise remain emptyImage: timtom.ch @ Flickr

15. Linked Data/ Linked Data…use URIs as names for things.use HTTP URIs, so that people can look up those nameswhen someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL)include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things/ point 2 brings greatest value/ modelling issues make realisation of the promise some way offImage: Zach Klein @ Flickr

16. Facebook ‘like’ button/ Facebook ‘like’ button provides interesting case in point/ underpinned by snippet of Linked Data (using the Open Graph Protocol)/ but emphasis is on building social capital rather than the technology/ arguably, value comes more from use of ‘http’ URI than from use of RDF

17. ConclusionsConclusions/ if the web teaches us one thing, it is the power of the http URI and links based on it/ openness and linkedness provide a platform for social interaction/ but are not sufficient on their own/ increasingly need to understand the social activity of our users, particularly resident behaviours, and think platform rather than channel