Web Service-based Applications: Optimizing Indexing,Searching, and Terminology Services

Marcia Zeng (Current Chair of ASIST Standards Committee, to whom allcorrespondence should be sent),School of LIS, Kent State Univ., mzeng@kent.edu

Dongming Zhang,Welch Medical Library, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Univ., dzhang1@jhmi.edu

Diane Vizine-Goetz,OCLC Research, OCLC, vizine@oclc.org

Rebecca S. Guenther,Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress, rgue@loc.gov

This panel is a continuing effort of the ASIST Standards Committee to promote the awareness ofstandards while bring in a focused panel to address an array of important issues around standards andapplications in which the ASIST community would be interested.

Web services provide a standard means of interoperating between different software applications,running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks. At current stage, the term Web services describes astandardized way of integrating Web-based applications using the XML, SOAP (Simple Object AccessProtocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language), and other open standards over an Internetprotocol backbone. Web services are characterized by: 1) great interoperability and extensibility and 2)machine-processable descriptions. Programs providing simple services can interact with each other inorder to deliver sophisticated value-added services. (W3C, 2002)

The panel presents research and development in the applications of Web services that support searchoptimization, metadata generation, indexing, and terminologies management and sharing. The panelistsare experts and leaders in these areas and have already conducted extensive research and developedWeb services. In specific, the presentations will focus on the following research and applications:

Domgning Zhang, Associate Director for Information Technologies at the Welch Medical Library Schoolof Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, will introduce the UMLS/MeSH concept-based indexing andsearch optimization services (research funded by the National Library of Medicine) and their applicationsin institutional repositories. These services are being seamlessly embedded into the system andtransparent to both submitters and users.

Diane Vizine-Goetz, Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Research, will present the research that hasaimed to offer accessible, modular, web-based terminology services. Terminology services are webservices involving various types of knowledge organization resources, for example, providing mappingsamong the vocabularies and making the resources accessible at various points in the metadata lifecycle.At present, over ten standard vocabularies have been mapped and provided for use in metadata

generating or searching. The speaker will provide a faceted view of the use of terminology services andthe prioritized features and functions as identified by user communities.

Rebecca S. Guenther, Senior Networking and Standards Specialist of the Library of Congress will talkabout the registry development for standards-based vocabularies. The Library of Congress' NetworkDevelopment and MARC Standards Office is the maintenance agency for a number of standards thatuse controlled vocabularies. These include all of the MARC code lists (languages, geographic areas,countries), XML based standards such as MODS and PREMIS, ISO 639-2 language codes, etc. TheOffice has been developing registries to make these controlled vocabularies more widely available andmachine actionable.

The panel will also initiate a discussion regarding the application of Web services in government, not-for-profit, and industry projects. The panel targets the information professionals who are engaged indeveloping Web services for the purposes especially to support search optimization, metadatageneration, indexing, and terminologies management and sharing.

Reference

W3C. (2008). Web Services Activity Statement. Retrieved January 25 2008, fromhttp://www.w3.org/2002/ws/Activity