"A centre of excellence in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities."

UKOLN is based at the University of Bath.

Job Title

Software Developer

Contact Details

UKOLN,
University of Bath,
Bath,
BA2 7AY
tel: +44 (0) 1225 386580
fax: +44 (0) 1225 386838
email: m.duke@ukoln.ac.uk

The Job I do

My role at UKOLN is to provide software development support for UKOLN's activities in the areas of resource discovery on the Internet, working within the Software and Systems team. This means that I work with the latest Internet technologies and standards that support the description, retrieval and delivery of information on the World Wide Web, such as the XML-related family of standards (e.g. XSLT, SOAP) and OAI-PMH. I write software and web applications to demonstrate the use of these standards to achieve interoperability as well as investigating and re-using existing tools and architectures.

Currently (September 2006) I am mainly working on the eBank UK project, demonstraing an OAI-PMH aggregator service in collaboration with project partners at the University of Southampton.

I previously formed part of the team which maintained and developed the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), prior to its re-launch as Intute. In 2005 I evaluated the use of WSRP for the delivery of portal content, within the RDN and on the short-term JISC-funded GroupLog project.

I also support communication and project management activities at UKOLN, assisting in responding to queries from RDN users as well as reporting to funders, disseminating project outcomes (by giving presentations and publications) and maintaining project web sites. I gave an invited tutorial at the OAI3 Workshop at CERN in Geneva in February 2004. An updated version will be delivered at the 15th Hellenic Academic Libraries conference in November 2006. I am maintaining some sections of the JISC standards catalogue.

From June 2000 (when I joined UKOLN) to August 2003, I worked mainly on the IMesh Toolkit Project, developing tools for subject gateways, and developing a special interest in the topic of personalization. My 2001 introductory Ariadne article still features in the top 10 Google search results for Personalization.

I was also involved in a short term project developing an Ontology Server for Agentcities.Net from September 2002 until February 2003.

I also help maintain the Public Library People directory, an LDAP-based directory of contact information for UK public library staff. I was involved in developing a similar service for the Metadata for Education Group (MEG).

Further Information

More information, including a list of my publications and presentations can be found on my personal home page.