• Jason A. Clark [@jaclark], Head, Library Informatics & Computing, Montana State University, jaclark@montana.edu
  • Scott W. H. Young [@hei_scott], Digital Initiatives Librarian, Montana State University, swyoung@montana.edu

Common methods of publishing book content have focused on various implementations of existing technologies such as LaTeX, Markdown, and .epub. A common theme within this development has been the separation of presentation layers and content layers. What if there was another way? In responding to that question, we’ll look at our local @msulibrary prototype software funded by an IMLS Sparks! Innovation grant for presenting books inside of web browsers (https://github.com/jasonclark/bib-template). Our talk will focus on the tools and technologies of open web publishing. We’ll consider the strange and wonderful benefits of integrating the presentation layer and content layer using semantic RDFa HTML5 markup, and we’ll demonstrate how describing and displaying books within an open web model impacts discovery, eBook production, and machine-readability.

Our session will include:

  • The benefits of using RDFa, Schema.org, and linked data models for book production
  • How structured data models for book content can turn your webpage into your API
  • Analyze the effects of this practice for machine-understanding, SEO, and UX
  • Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this model as it applies to a range of book genres, including web book prototypes for fiction and poetry.

Chocolate/Peanut Butter… RDFa/HTML5… Linked Data/Dbpedia Topics… “Great tastes that go great together.”