As usual, the Corporate Librarian is late to the party on this, but lately he’s been thinking about microformats. In plain English, microformats are a means of structuring data in a machine-readable open standard format using an extension to HTML called XHTML. The goal is to allow things like event listings, resumes and reviews to be parsed so that interesting applications can be built around them, like Emurse.com or Technorati’s Events Feed Service.
You can read all about microformats here, but the Corporate Librarian is interested in their application to libraries. Daniel Chudnov has been working with others on a bibliographic citation microformat, which could be the building-block of an open standards-based cataloging software. Check out a rudimentary example here. I believe (correct me if I’m wrong on this and I’ll edit the post accordingly) that Superpatron Ed Vielmetti kicked things off here.
Imagine a world where IT worked with librarians to develop microformat-based catalogs (or adopt existing ones), librarians notified patrons of training events which they could subscribe to using the hCalendar microformat, helped build expert networks using XFN and came up with microformats the Corporate Librarian hasn’t even thought of yet!
If you know HTML, you can pick up microformats easily enough – it’s not the same as being a hardcore coder. I really think this is an easy way librarians can:
- Build closer relationships with IT (whom I’d think would go nuts over the opportunity to work on something like this)
- Provide innovative services to patrons
- Raise awareness of librarians within their organizations
Posted by Steven Kaye 
Posted by Steven Kaye 
