Digital Libraries1

Digital Libraries

David Rashty

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“A library is an arsenal of liberty”

Anonymous

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Contents

• Introduction

• Technical considerations– Interoperability– Supporting technologies

• User interface design

• Examples

• Conclusion

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Introduction

First steps and related concepts

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What is a digital library?

Introduction

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A digital library…

is composed of four main components:

1. a collection of digital objects;

2. information referring to those objects;

3. a structure for presenting information;

4. interaction elements.

Introduction

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Related fields

Database management

Human computer interaction

Information science

Library science

Multimedia systems

Natural language

processing

Networking and communications

Introduction

DL

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Related concepts

• User interface– The point of contact between human and machine.

• Data mining– Extraction of new data or partial information from a

database.

• Information retrieval– Popping up information (not data) from a database

according to users needs.

Introduction

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Technical considerations

Interoperability and Supporting technologies

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Definition

• Digital libraries are collections of separately developed entities that are put together in order to facilitate access to information.

• The central concern of interoperability is to connect such entities in a functional and efficient way.

Interoperability

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Design questions

• What are the basic technologies that enable sharing information between different systems?

• What is the best networking technology for intercomponent communication?

• Data formats, document models, languages, protection functions?

Interoperability

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Evaluation criteria

• The following criteria identify well integrated systems:– High degree of component autonomy;– Low cost of infrastructure;– Ease of contributing components;– Ease of using components;– Task complexity supported by the system;– Scalability in the number of components.

Interoperability

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An industrial design example

• Design activities and interaction structure that characterize the industrial engineering design process.

Supporting Technologies

Pejtersen, A. M. Semantic Information Retrieval. Communications of the ACM, April 998

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An industrial design example

• Technologies and design considerations for the industrial engineering design process:– In addition to common interaction capabilities with information

sources, engineers have to be able to judge the sources of information for their reliability and trustworthiness.

– A strong commitment to knowledge management is an important feature of industrial engineering systems: engineers need access to previous cases and the distributed human knowledge in the organization.

– The system must provide exploration by analogy.

– The system must be built around a transparent interface with various functional capabilities.

Supporting Technologies

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User interface design

Best practices

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Design concerns

• Digital libraries must provide search and retrieval systems such that users can navigate information space easily.

• Users must feel comfortable and receive continual feedback from the system in order to get what they are looking for.

• Design for globalization demands special attention to usability problems.

User interface design

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Design concerns

• Some results from usability studies:– Designers must provide a clear overview of the digital

library layout.

– The DL must provide facilities to filter search results and save queries for additional refinements.

– Search criteria should include simple and advanced searches.

– Searches and retrieval of documents should be fast.

User interface design

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Design concerns

• Some results from usability studies:– Users expect digital libraries to provide many of the

features found in a traditional library such as broad coverage of many topics, readable text, etc.

– Users want to search by author, keyword, title, journal, year and volume.

– Users want search results to be presented as PDF, HTML or plain text.

– The DL must provide good help facilities.– Provide cues for guiding the search process.

User interface design

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Examples

Implementations

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ACM

Examples

Browsing and search possibilities as well as bookmark service for subscribers.

Help facilities and information about usage and the system.

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ACM

Examples

Search by author, title, terms. Each one offers a number of options.

Options for limiting the search (filtering).

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IEEE

Examples

Easy access to search options as well as clear exposition of the objects in the library.

Users have a bird’s eye view of the content in the library.

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IEEE

Examples

Search by terms and options on the scope of the search.

Users can see the main elements of the search space.

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NCSTRL

Examples

Search, options and direct access to their archives.

Simple search options. Search by author, title and abstract as well as sorting preferences.

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Conclusion

Research directions and conclusions

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Research directions

Conclusion

More usable and efficient user interfaces

Intelligent techniques for searching, browsing and information retrieval

Interoperability solutions for the global library

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Conclusions

• Digital libraries are among the most complex existing forms of information systems.

• Access to information today is simpler and the sources are many. Building effective DL will help people to deal with this situation by guiding them in the process of information search and retrieval.

• The future of the web depend on interface designers being capable of developing methods of reducing frustration and anxiety for the users.

Conclusion

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References

• www.dlib.com: Online magazine on DL• www.acm.org: Digital library of the ACM• www.computer.org: Digital library of the IEEE

Conclusion