A Great Idea

Again from Stephan Spencer, a great idea of a good use for metadata (instead of increasing your SEO):

Wouldn’t it be cool if business websites were all tagged with meta data like:

• business hours
  
• geolocation (latitude & longitude)
  
• NAICS code (the successor to SIC code)
  
• physical & mailing addresses

[I'd add a phone number and contact e-mail since I've had serious trouble looking for this info for many businesses lately]

Remember rule 4? Save the time of the reader? People shouldn't have to call the reference desk to get the library's hours. I'm glad to help out, but the information should be accessible elsewhere. N.B. I know that there are people who do not have Internet access and most likely they are the ones calling....

What if this information showed up in a search engine when they were looking for the library? It could be incorporated into your RSS feeds. You are doing RSS feeds at your library, right? This information should be front and center on every businesses website. And it's not.