Interactive context-aware user-driven metadata correction in digital libraries

Personal name variants are a common problem in digital libraries, reducing the precision of searches and complicating browsing-based interaction. The book-centric approach of name authority control has not scaled to match the growth and diversity of digital repositories. In this paper, we present a novel system for user-driven integration of name variants when interacting with web-based information??in particular digital library??systems. We approach these issues via a client-side JavaScript browser extension that can reorganize web content and also integrate remote data sources. Designed to be agnostic towards the web sites it is applied to, we illustrate the developed proof-of-concept system through worked examples using three different digital libraries. We discuss the extensibility of the approach in the context of other user-driven information systems and the growth of the Semantic Web.     

A hybrid system approach for supporting digital libraries

A digital library (DL) consists of a database which contains library information and a user interface which provides a visual window for users to search relevant information stored in the database. Thus, an abstract structure of a digital library can be defined as a combination of a special purpose database and a user-friendly interface. This paper addresses one of the fundamental aspects of such a combination. This is the formal data structure for linking an object oriented database with hypermedia to support digital libraries. It is important to establish a formal structure for a digital library in order to efficiently maintain different types of library information. This article discusses how to build an object oriented hybrid system to support digital libraries. In particular, we focus on the discussion of a general purpose data model for digital libraries and the design of the corresponding hypermedia interface. The significant features of this research are, first, a formalized data model to define a digital library system structure; second, a practical approach to manage the global schema of a library system; and finally, a design strategy to integrate hypermedia with databases to support a wide range of application areas. Received: 15 December 1997 / Revised: June 1999     

Integrated information resource system of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a technology for developing digital libraries

Problems of developing digital libraries are considered. An analysis of this class of distributed information systems is given. The main effort is focused on the formalization of properties of the stored objects and operations, which makes it possible to construct a formal model of digital libraries. This model can serve as a basis for designing development tools. Systems based on this approach are called integrated information resource systems (IIRS). In particular, the information retrieval system of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IIRS RAS) is based on these principles. The paper is organized as follows. First, the aim of the paper is outlined. Then, the definition of a digital library is given (as it is understood by the authors), basic concepts are discussed, and IIRS is considered as a digital library. The notion of the resource is introduced as the basic object to be processed. Metadata and their role in the system of digital libraries are considered, as well as the role of relationships and data organization. Then, the architecture and functional capabilities of IIRS are considered, and, in particular, a metamodel of the system, data search, and the implementation of data distribution. The current implementation of IIRS RAS is briefly outlined.     

Assessing effects of information architecture of digital libraries on supporting E-learning: A case study on the Digital Library of Nature & Culture

Modern digital libraries not only contain rich digital resources, they are also required to provide an environment which integrates collection provision, information services, and academic activities to support effective learning. This work chose the Digital Library of Nature and Culture established by the National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan to investigate whether the design of the information architecture of a digital library influences learning performance and whether learners with different learning styles have different information usage behaviors and learning performance when they use the digital library to support e-learning. This work suggested that e-learning supported by a digital library resulted in excellent learning performance. Regarding the influence of information architecture on learning performance, this work found that the organization system was crucial to learning performance. Further, learners with different learning performance exhibit different behaviors when they use the information architecture of the digital library. Another finding was that the learning performance of global learners was better than that of sequential learners. Global learners and those learners with superior learning performance relied more heavily on the organization system, while sequential learners and those learners with inferior learning performance relied more heavily on the search system.     

Using distributed objects to build the Stanford digital libraryInfobus

For digital libraries to thrive, the providers of information processing services must be able to evolve their systems autonomously. However, as the complexity of their offerings increases, software tools more sophisticated than existing Web facilities are needed. Distributed object technology may be the answer. The availability of high-volume, increasingly sophisticated information is making the need for metadata facilities more urgent. Traditional, library-based approaches break down when used in an advanced digital library. More modular mechanisms are needed, and the CORBA system is one approach. Digital libraries are affected at a deep technical level by the widely differing user traditions of Web users and library patrons. The challenge and opportunity of digital libraries will be the synthesis of these traditions. The authors set out to create a technical infrastructure to support the construction of digital libraries. In their view, a digital library comprises widely distributed resources that can be maintained autonomously by different organizations and will not require adherence to uniform interfaces     

Social network technologies for semantic linking of information objects in scientific digital library

In the last decade, scientific digital libraries were traditionally used for publishing research results and for enabling wide open access to them. Functional capabilities of digital libraries can be extended by offering users the opportunity of linking information objects of the library and providing for created linkages explicitly defined semantics based on a given ontology. Such an activity of users, which is peculiar to social networks, motivated by different reasons, and carried out on their own initiative, results in the dynamic semantic structure of the digital library content. In the environment of such a kind of a social network, certain new forms of scientific activities become possible and data sources can be created that provide more information for scientometric researches as compared to presently available ones. In this paper, we propose an approach for creating such networks and discuss results of its implementation in the Socionet environment; the Socionet is a large-scale online information space that covers information resources of a number of scientific, educational, etc. organizations.     

Digital libraries and Web 3.0. The CallimachusDL approach

The constantly increasing volume of information available on the Internet is changing the forms of classification and access to data. Given the immense collection of information stored on the Internet, digital libraries constitute a fundamental subject of research. Among the challenges of classifying, locating and accessing knowledge in digital libraries tackling with the huge amount of resources the Web provides, improving digital libraries by means of different strategies, particularly, using semantics remains a promising and interesting approach. In this paper, CallimachusDL is presented, a semantics-based digital library which provides faceted search, enhanced access possibilities and a proof-of-concept implementation. CallimachusDL represents a novel approach to digital libraries, integrating social web and multimedia elements in a semantically annotated repository. The results of the implementation indicate that the features proposed in CallimachusDL are encouraging and extendable in the use of digital libraries.     

Designing personalized digital libraries over websites with semistructured data

Issues concerning the design of personalized digital libraries over collections of semistructured data available on the Web are considered. The approach suggested makes it possible to design libraries adjusted to the personal needs of information users that place various requirements upon the contents and representation of information. The digital library is designed as a composition of fragments of websites. In this paper, a method for the compositional design of information systems is applied to semistructured data on the Web. This method was developed at the Institute for Problems of Informatics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPI RAS) [2]. The design procedure is demonstrated by designing a library over two websites containing data about registered patents.     

Multimedia information using mobile computers: accessing the digital campus and the digital library

Abstract

It is clear that the role of the information resource is changing. Major publishers have been slow to adapt to the emergence of a global digital medium, but there are now signs that a great deal of information will be delivered on-line, (although at present only about 25 databases account for 80% of usage in UK and optical publishing is still in its early stages). However, digital publishing on the Internet — with services for libraries such as just-in-time purchasing and delivery, for example — will be a driving force in creating the ‘global digital medium’. One issue that will become increasingly relevant is how the individual user accesses rich multimedia data in the most appropriate way. The ‘digital university campus’ and the ‘digital library’ are coming to be important concepts, with the aim that users of information services will receive information on-line supported by a ‘ubiquistructure’ of information technology. For the ‘digital campus’ this means that not only scholarly but also teaching activities are based on interactive access to information, and where not only the digital library but also the digital bookshop and the digital classroom are becoming possible with the development of 140Mb/s SuperJANET links. However, it is recognised that libraries will not be truly digital for the foreseeable future, and that libraries will maintain traditional and digital media side by side. In this paper, reporting on work at the University of Bristol's Educational Technology Service multimedia resources unit MRU, and the University of the West of England's Centre for Personal Information Management (in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories and the University of Bristol's Centre for Communications Research), we look the ‘digital library’ and ‘digital campus’ from the perspective of the individual user and her information needs. We are particularly interested in the use of small, mobile computers as access points to the global digital medium. We suggest that, in an environment of change — where the traditional campus and the traditional library exist alongside the digital campus and digital library — the most appropriate form of access technology is based on ‘personal technology’ which allows a linking between digital information and traditional paper-based information.     

A dynamic manifestation approach for providing universal access todigital library objects

Digital libraries are concerned with the creation and management of information sources, the movement of information across global networks, and the effective use of this information by a wide range of users. A digital library is a vast collection of objects that are of multimedia nature, e.g. text, video, images, and audio. Users wishing to access the digital library objects may possess varying capabilities, preferences, domain expertise, and may use different information appliances. Facilitating access to complex multimedia digital library objects that suits the users' requirements is known as universal access. We present an object manifestation approach in which digital library objects automatically manifest themselves to cater to the users' capabilities and characteristics. We provide a formal framework, based on Petri nets, to represent the various components of the digital library objects, their modality and fidelity, and the playback synchronization relationships among them. We develop methodologies for object delivery without any deadtime under network delays     

基于云计算的数字图书馆公共服务平台架构

数字图书馆公共服务平台为数字化全民阅读提供了一个有效的途径,为广大用户提供大量数字版资源的在线阅读、下载和分享等. 随着数字化信息资源的爆炸式增长,如何有效的解决海量数字图书馆信息资源的存储和处理,并能将不同区域和类型的数字图书馆资源集成起来成为研究的热点. 依据安徽教育出版社的数字图书馆公共服务的全民阅读平台,研究云计算下数字图书馆的平台架构,利用云计算的分布式存储和并行计算的特点,为出版社的数字图书馆建设提供可行性研究方案.     

基于J2EE的异构资源统一检索系统的设计与实现

针对图书馆数字资源种类众多、应用系统各异、内容交叉重复、知识关联度低、信息数据格式和存储方式多样化、检索语言、检索方法差异性较大、用户利用数字资源不便的现状,结合该校图书馆资源的现状,基于J2EE平台和MVC设计模式,设计了统一检索系统,对数字图书资源和馆藏书目数据库进行了集成,在检索功能方面实现了不同介质图书资源的整合。     

浅谈数字图书馆信息组织的数据库技术

数字图书馆已经不再是一个崭新的概念,经历了相当一段时间的发展。在这一段时期之内,数字图书馆的建设在很多方面已经有了很大改进,这是一种概念和思想,便捷的服务是其中一个重要的组成要素。本文首先对数字图书馆的发展历史展开了阐述,其次结合数字图书馆的特点,强调了应用数据库技术对图书馆信息进行组织管理的必要性,最后着重探讨了数据仓库技术、关系数据库、多媒体数据库、面向对象的数据库技术、非结构化数据库技术等在数字图书馆信息组织的应用。     

数字图书馆中数据对象的描述和检索

数字图书馆中最基本的元素是数据对象，对数据对象的描述、存贮和检索构成了数字图书馆的基本功能。该文首先介绍了一个数字图书馆结构框架，并以此为基础提出了数字图书馆中基本元素数据对象的描述方法和目前正在制定中的标准，然后给出了一个基于层次化树状结构的数据对象检索方法。     

Linguistic and architectural requirements for personalized digital libraries

information tokens as supplied by information providers on the net; value is added to such tokens by individually constructing information artifacts over them with the goal of information consumer satisfaction; (2) the services required for artifact construction and use – on the information level as well as on the level of the software artifacts required for these processes – rely heavily on powerful binding environments for multi-medial, persistent and networked information; (3) the processes of artifact construction and use are in themselves valuable sources of information about artifacts; for the exploitation of such process information, digital libraries employ advanced tracing environments. We derive linguistic and architectural requirements for digital libraries from these above essentials. On the language level we concentrate on generalized requirements for the typing, binding and scoping of library entities and services. On the system level we discuss architectural requirements in terms of orthogonal persistence, open extensibility, platform independence, mobility and reflection. We present Tycoon, a polymorphic, higher-order language and its system, and demonstrate its potential for digital libraries. We evaluate Tycoon's rich conceptual basis (data, functions and threads), library-based extensibility, powerful binding mechanisms, its orthogonal persistence and its capability of network-wide data, code and thread migration. We conclude by referring to an interdisciplinary digital library project in Art History Research based on icons, texts and data. Here, Tycoon effectively supports the process of individually customizing and scaling library services thus generalizing the notion of a query language into that of a persistent personal reference library. Received: 1 August 1996 / Accepted: 15 November 1996     

网格环境下基于OAI的数字图书馆互操作机制

现有数字图书馆（DLs）互操作方案，在实现大规模数字图书馆集成方面都存在一定的局限性。该文将网格技术与OAI-PMH框架相结合，提出了一个数字图书馆网格（DL Grid）互操作框架，并对网格环境下元数据资源的发现、采集、重组等关键问题进行了分析和设计，初步实现了在集成的元数据基础上数字图书馆信息的共享。     

Digital Libraries for the Next Millennium: Challenges and Research Directions

The unprecedented growth of Internet technologies has made resources on the World Wide Web instantly accessible to various user communities through digital libraries. Since the early 1990s, there have been several digital library initiatives sponsored by government agencies and/or private organizations all over the world. A digital library is a networked system environment that provides diverse user communities with coherent, seamless and transparent access to large, organized, and digitized information resources. This article provides a comprehensive overview of major digital library projects that are currently being undertaken across the globe. We also identify and discuss major challenges and research issues to be addressed in the design and implementation of digital libraries for the next millennium. We believe that digital libraries are ripe with research opportunities, offer many challenges, and will continue to grow in the next several years.     

Digital library information-technology infrastructures

This paper charts a research agenda on systems-oriented issues in digital libraries. It focuses on the most central and generic system issues, including system architecture, user-level functionality, and the overall operational environment. With respect to user-level functionality, in particular, it abstracts the overall information lifecycle in digital libraries to five major stages and identifies key research problems that require solution in each stage. Finally, it recommends an explicit set of activities that would help achieve the research goals outlined and identifies several dimensions along which progress of the digital library field can be evaluated.     

ActiveGraph: A digital library visualization tool

ActiveGraph is an information visualization tool designed to provide users with a concise, customizable view of objects in a digital library. A set of digital library objects is represented as a data set in a two- or three-dimensional scatter plot. The data set can represent any digital library objects in any medium: books, journals, papers, images, Web resources, or even entire databases. Since ActiveGraph is intended for use in the context of digital libraries, data attributes consist for the most part of metadata fields such as title, author, date of publication, and number of citations. Data attributes are mapped to six visual attributes of the scatter plot: the X-, Y-, and Z-axes, color, size, and shape. The metadata for a selected data point are displayed in a control panel on the right-hand side of the screen. Users can edit the metadata and even add new metadata fields. Thus ActiveGraph allows users to both view and customize the contents of a library. Because of its flexibility in handling digital library objects and metadata of different types, ActiveGraph can be used in a variety of digital library applications. In this paper, we describe two: LibGraph, which is a visualization of a collaborative library, and CiteGraph, which is a visualization of citation statistics. Both applications were designed for use by scientists and engineers, for whom scatter plots are familiar and intuitive visualizations.     

Personalisation and recommender systems in digital libraries

Widespread use of the Internet has resulted in digital libraries that are increasingly used by diverse communities of users for diverse purposes and in which sharing and collaboration have become important social elements. As such libraries become commonplace, as their contents and services become more varied, and as their patrons become more experienced with computer technology, users will expect more sophisticated services from these libraries. A simple search function, normally an integral part of any digital library, increasingly leads to user frustration as user needs become more complex and as the volume of managed information increases. Proactive digital libraries, where the library evolves from being passive and untailored, are seen as offering great potential for addressing and overcoming these issues and include techniques such as personalisation and recommender systems. In this paper, following on from the DELOS/NSF Working Group on Personalisation and Recommender Systems for Digital Libraries, which met and reported during 2003, we present some background material on the scope of personalisation and recommender systems in digital libraries. We then outline the working group’s vision for the evolution of digital libraries and the role that personalisation and recommender systems will play, and we present a series of research challenges and specific recommendations and research priorities for the field.