I am building a little web service that spits out info on when the libraries (a central library and two branches) are open and what the hours are for that day.  As those who work in academic libraries know, it's not the *regular* hours, but all the exception dates/hours that are important (Spring break, Maymester, intersession, Christmas holidays, yadda, yadda).  This app knows all the exceptions.

The basic idea is that it provides real-time, "is it open right now" info for *today* (as well as today's hours).  If this sounds "mobile-y", it's because it was originally conceived as an addition to our Library's mobile website.

I'm trying to figure out the most flexible output markup (RDF schema?), one that would allow the widest use of the web service in addition to outputting HTML markup for a mobile site page.

I've googled and found a few things, but nothing that really seems to fit.  Most of them (e.g. the RDF "OpeningHoursUseCase" on W3C [1]) are more about rules for recurring intervals.  My interest is not in representing the totality of the schedule (again, because of all the exception dates/times) but in representing one day (i.e. today).  So I don't care about representing recurring intervals.

And actually, the "Outsider Comments" use cases at the bottom of the "OpeningHoursUseCase" site mentioned above are almost exactly what I'm trying to satisfy (just substitute "library" where you see "shop" or "restaurant):

	<quote>
	I'm looking for exactly this xml, but this seems to
	be very complex,	and going off in different tangents. 
	Here are my use cases:
	- I wish to go to a shop or restaurant, and I wish to
	  know if it's open for the next few hours.
	- It's late at night, and I need to go to the drug
	  store or a small market. I wish to be able to search
	  for a business that is open right now. The search
	  should happen on a mapping site, or a web search site.
	- I have business with a microbusiness that's open only
	  a few days a week. It's important enough for me to
	  bring their schedule into my calendar, temporarily,
	  so I can get there when they're open.
	- I want to coordinate a trip and run a few errands. 
	  I would like to get all the hours for relevant
	  businesses on a specific day. I can sort through the
	  hours myself. 
	</quote>

I also saw that "opening times in RDF" was listed as a use case in the Code4Lib wiki "Library Ontology" page [2].  However in the "Relevant formats and models" section the links just complete the loop back to things like the OpeningHoursUseCase previously mentioned.

Anyone done anything like this?  Any ideas?  Suggestions?  (This is my first baby-step into RDF, so don't assume any prior knowledge on my part.)

-- Michael

[1] http://www.w3.org/wiki/OpeningHoursUseCase

[2] http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Library_Ontology

# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
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