Showing papers presented at "ACM international conference on Digital libraries in 2004"

ChinaGrid: making grid computing a reality

Abstract: Grid computing presents a new trend to distributed computing and Internet applications, which can construct a virtual single image of heterogeneous resources, provide uniform application interface and integrate widespread computational resources into super, ubiquitous and transparent aggregation. ChinaGrid project, founded by Ministry of Education of China, is an attempt to achieve above goals by exploring the various resources on existing and well developed internet infrastructure, CERNET (China Education and Research Network). In this paper, I will introduce the general picture of ChinaGrid project, its vision and mission. The design of ChinaGrid support platform, called CGSP, is also discussed briefly. To illustrate the reality of ChinaGrid project, five different grid computing applications and its application supporting platform are discussed in detail. The purpose of this paper is to introduce this great grid project to the world completely for the first time.

Metadata quality evaluation: experience from the open language archives community

Abstract: We describe the motivation, design and implementation of an infrastructure to support metadata quality assessment within a specialised Open Archives Initiative (OAI) sub-domain, the Open Language Archives Community (OLAC). While services for structural validation of metadata are widely used, there is little corresponding work regarding services which evaluate the semantic and syntactic content of metadata from a qualitative perspective. We posit that any measure of metadata quality benefits from both contextual and referential assessment – metadata on a per record and per collection basis is legitimately assessed against the baseline of broader community practice, as well as for compliance to any external standard. In this paper we describe the implementation of a metadata quality assessment scheme, and the corresponding interfaces to the evaluation tool.

Metadata extraction from bibliographies using bigram HMM

Abstract: In recent years, we have seen huge volumes of research papers available on the World Wide Web. Metadata provides a good approach for organizing and retrieving these useful resources. Accordingly, automatic extraction of metadata from these papers and their bibliographies is meaningful and has been widely studied. In this paper, we utilize a bigram HMM (Hidden Markov Model) for automatic extraction of metadata (i.e. title, author, date, journal, pages, etc.) from bibliographies with various styles. Different from the traditional HMM, which only uses word frequency, this model also considers both words' bigram sequential relation and position information in text fields. We have evaluated the model on a real corpus downloaded from Web and compared it with other methods. Experiments show that the bigram HMM yields the best result and seem to be the most promising candidate for metadata extraction of bibliographies.

Preserving digital media: towards a preservation solution evaluation metric

Abstract: With an increasing amount of information being digitized or directly created and subsequently existing only electronically, and coupled with an ever increasing variety of file formats and integrated document functionalities, long-term preservation solutions become crucial. While different approaches, such as Emulation, Migration, or Computer Museums were developed, neither of them excels in all circumstances, and the selection of the most appropriate strategy poses a non-trivial task. In this paper, an adapted version of Utility Analysis is presented, which can be used for choosing an optimal preservation solution for each individual situation. This analysis method comes from infrastructure projects and is here used to combine the wide range of requirements which are to be considered in order to choose a suitable preservation strategy. The evaluation metric will be presented and demonstrated with the help of two practical examples.

Metadata quality study for the national science digital library (NSDL) metadata repository

Abstract: Metadata repositories are loosely-controlled environments where each discrete metadata dataset retains its independent identity, multiple standards were applied, and records were contributed on a voluntary-based system. As more integrated digital libraries take such an approach in order to provide comprehensive collections, quality of the metadata records describing these collections' items has drawn increased attention, since they function as a ‘window' of a digital library collection and its services and directly involve in the success or failure of any information seeing performance. This poster reports the preliminary findings from a project funded by the National Science Foundation to study the quality of the metadata records in the National Science Digital Library (NSDL)'s Metadata Repository. (Figure 1. Project work space).

Interest-based user grouping model for collaborative filtering in digital libraries

Abstract: Research in recommender systems focuses on applications such as in online shopping malls and simple information systems. These systems consider user profile and item information obtained from data explicitly entered by users. – where it is possible to classify items involved and to make recommendations based on a direct mapping from user or user group to item or item group. However, in complex, dynamic, and professional information systems, such as Digital Libraries, additional capabilities are needed for recommender systems to support their distinctive features: large numbers of digital objects, dynamic updates, sparse rating data, biased rating data on specific items, and challenges in getting explicit rating data from users. In this paper, we present an interest-based user grouping model for a collaborative recommender system for Digital Libraries. Also, we present several user interfaces that obtain implicit user rating data. Our model uses a high performance document clustering algorithm, LINGO, to extract document topics and user interests from documents users access in a Digital Library. This model is better suited to Digital Libraries than traditional recommender systems because it focuses more on users than items and because it utilizes implicit rating data.

An implementation of web image search engines

Abstract: This paper presents our implementation techniques for an intelligent Web image search engine. A reference architecture of the system is provided and addressed in this paper. The system includes several components such as a crawler, a preprocessor, a semantic extractor, an indexer, a knowledge learner and a query engine. The crawler traverses web sites in multithread accesses model. And it can dynamically control its access load to a Web server based on the corresponding capacity of the local system. The preprocessor is used to clean and normalize the information resource downloaded from Web sites. In this process, stop-word removing and word stemming are applied to the raw resources. The semantic extractor derives Web image semantics by partitioning combining the associated text. The indexer of the system creates and maintains inverted indices with relational model. Our knowledge learner is designed to automatically acquire knowledge from users' query activities. Finally, the query engine delivers search results in two phases in order to mine out the users' feedbacks.

Access to information in digital libraries : users and digital divide

Abstract: Recognising the importance of information and knowledge in all spheres of human life, the recently held World Summit on Information Society came up with a plan of action for building a global information society. The goal of the world information society initiatives is the same as that of digital library research and development - to make information and knowledge accessibleto everyone in the world. Digital libraries have progressed very rapidly over the past ten or soyears. This paper addresses the two most important aspects of the information society - information users and digital divide. Findings of some large-scale studies on human information behaviour on the web and digital libraries have been discussed. The major findings of a study on access to electronic resources by university students are the presented. Proposed that a one-stop window approach with a task-based information organisation and access system may be the way forward.

Ontology mapping by concept similarity

Abstract: This paper presents an approach to the problem of mapping ontologies. The motivation for the research stems from the Diogene Project which is developing a web training environment for ICT professionals. The system includes high quality training material from registered content providers, and free web material will also be made available through the project's "Web Discovery" component. This involves using web search engines to locate relevant material, and mapping the ontology at the core of the Diogene system to other ontologies that exist on the Semantic Web. The project's approach to ontology mapping is presented, and an evaluation of this method is described.

Temporal versioning of XML documents

Abstract: A data model supporting the unification of the management of temporal XML document databases and version control, i.e., a Temporal Version Data Model (TVDM), is proposed. TVDM is temporally change-centric and represents the change between two consecutive versions by means of temporal delta (tDelta). A tDelta employs a temporal XML expression (tXex) which is an extension of ordinary XML elements by incorporation into them temporal as well as ordinary variables. In addition to valid time, TVDM introduces version time and associates it with each version. All versions including the base or the current one can be uniformly represented by tDeltas. A technique to implement TVDM is also presented.

PaSE: locating online copy of scientific documents effectively

Abstract: The need for fast and vast dissemination of research results has led a new trend such that more number of authors post their documents to personal or group Web spaces so that others can easily access and download them. Similarly, more and more researchers use online search for accessing documents of interest in Web, instead of paying a visit to libraries. Currently, to locate and download an online copy of a particular document D, one typically (1) uses Search Engines with the citation information and browses through returned web pages (e.g., author's homepage) to see if any contains D, or (2) uses searching facilities of an individual Digital Library (e.g., CiteSeer, e-Print) looking for D, and if not found, repeats the search in another Digital Library. However, the scheme (1) involves human browsing to get to the final online copy, while the scheme (2) suffers from incomplete coverage. To remedy these shortcomings, in this paper, we present a system, named as PaSE, which can effectively locate online copies (e.g., PDF or PS) of scientific documents using citation information. We consider a myriad of alternatives in crawling and parsing the Web to arrive at the right document quickly, and present a preliminary experimental study. Using some of the best alternatives that we have identified, we show that PaSE can locate online copy of documents more accurately and conveniently than human users would do at the cost of elongated search time.

A document image preprocessing system for keyword spotting

Abstract: This paper presents a system for the segmentation of a printed document image into word images, which can be used effectively for document image retrieval based on keyword spotting. The system is composed of three image manipulation modules: skew correction, document layout analysis, and word segmentation. To enhance the practical applicability and flexibility of our research results, we test the system with 50 images of Korean papers and 50 images of English papers provided through full-text image retrieval services by the Korea Information Science Society and the Pattern Recognition Society, respectively. Currently, the accuracy of word extraction ranges from 90 to 95%, depending on the language of the document.

The impact of copyright upon digital libraries

Abstract: The Internet offers unprecedented opportunities for people to communicate and access to information. Libraries are embracing the new digital medium as it allows massive data storage, faster and more effective data retrieval, and easier content navigation and transfer. This communication revolution helps libraries fulfill their important mission in the society as the information repository and disseminator. The legal landscape of the digital environment, however, is very different from that of the traditional print environment due to the nature of the digital technology. This research explores the shift of legal paradigm and its implications upon the digital library development, and also suggests viable solutions to cope with the trend.

Supporting field study with personalized project spaces in a geographical digital library

Abstract: Digital libraries have been rather successful in supporting learning activities by providing learners with access to information and knowledge. However, this level of support is passive to learners and interactive and collaborative learning cannot be easily achieved. In this paper, we study how digital libraries could be extended to serve a more active role in collaborative learning activities. We focus on developing new services to support a common type of learning activity, field study, in a geospatial context. We propose the concept of personal project space that allows individuals to work in their personalized environment with a mix of private and public data and at the same time to share part of the data with team members. To support the portability of the resources in our digital library, the selected resources can be exported in an organized manner.

Information retrieval challenges for digital libraries

Abstract: Information retrieval is an important component of digital libraries, and there is a high degree of synergy between the two research communities. Much of the current research in information retrieval is potentially relevant to digital libraries, and digital libraries present a challenging environment in which to incorporate new information retrieval methods.

The role of context for information mediation in digital libraries

Abstract: Mediating between available information objects and individual information needs is a central issue within the functionality of a digital library. In the simplest case this is an information request answered by a search engine based on an analysis of information objects within the digital library's information collection. However, neither the information access activity nor the information objects within the collection are isolated entities. They are both equipped with a multifaceted context. The invited talk, which is summarized by this paper, analyzes this context and discusses complementing approaches to make such context explicit and to use it for refining the mediation process within digital libraries.

Exploiting extended service-oriented architecture for federated digital libraries

Abstract: In order to support various requirements from the user's perspective, digital library (DL) systems may need to apply a large variety of services, such as query services for a specific DL, mapping services for mapping and integrating heterogeneous metadata records, or query modification and expansion services for retrieving additional relevant documents. This paper focuses on exploiting an extended Service-Oriented Architecture – Peer-based SOA (PSOA) for DL development with the goal of alleviating the weaknesses in the basic SOA infrastructure, especially in the aspects of scalability and interoperability. We also present our work in how to combine the Semantic Web and Web Services together to support interoperability over heterogeneous library services. A query service example is also presented.

Digital preservation and workflow process

Abstract: The digital societies of E-government, E-learning, and E-business have grown by leaps and bounds worldwide during the last several years. While we have invested significant time and effort to create and maintain those workflow processes, we do not have the ability to make digital objects generated by the processes all available across generations of information technology, making it accessible with future technology and enabling people to determine whether it is authentic and reliable. This is a very serious problem for which no complete solutions have been devised yet. This paper discusses three important factors – archival stability, organizational process, and technology continuity – for digital preservation to succeed, and describes a general framework of digital libraries (or the life cycle of information) to address this important problem so that we may find reasonable ways to preserve digital objects that can be analyzed and evaluated in quantitative measures and incremental manners.

Cross-Cultural usability of digital libraries

Abstract: The advent of digitization has enabled individuals, institutions, and communities to create and disseminate digital representations of their cultural heritage in digital libraries (DL). These digital collections are increasingly broader in scope and reach, spanning geographical and cultural boundaries. They serve users from their originating culture and often also play the role of cultural ambassadors by serving users from other cultures. While cross-cultural use of DLs is present, little research is available on the influence of culture as it pertains to the design and use of DLs. In this paper, we define cross-cultural usability guidelines for DLs and apply these to the heuristic evaluation of six “national” DLs. Results of a usability evaluation study of five of the DLs are also reported. The national DLs were selected based on their mission, funding model, and originating organization and they all represent their respective cultures. Results of the evaluation show that current DL UIs and content do not serve international users very well. These results were confirmed in a user study in which users were asked to browse “national” digital libraries from countries other than their own. Based on our results, we propose guidelines for the designers of DLs to support their international users and truly serve as “cultural ambassadors” for their originating countries. While the results of this study were gained through the evaluation of DLs using the Latin alphabet, the general design guidelines are proposed for DLs of all cultures.

Integrating electronic pathfinders in digital libraries: a model for China

Abstract: Electronic pathfinders/subject guides help library patrons learn about library resources and develop research strategies. By reviewing the existing literature and the current status of reference service in digital libraries in China, the authors suggest that integrating subject specific pathfinders in digital libraries would benefit both users and librarians. This paper also offers a format and a construction guide to aid librarians in preparing readable and usable electronic pathfinders. An appendix presents pathfinder format guidelines and a sample pathfinder.

Multilingual collection retrieving via ontology alignment

Abstract: As parts of global information infrastructure, digital libraries will likely be accessed by people all over world. Ontologies and their association can alleviate the heterogeneity and particularly the diversity of languages. This paper proposes a solution to cross-lingual information retrieval problem via ontology alignment. We elaborate two original techniques, i.e. primitives' association based on CL-LSI and mapping configuration optimization, to augment existing ontology mapping technology. As a result, multilingual collections can be bridged by this mapping, and searching across them can be achieved by three tractable steps: querying against local ontology, routing to target ontologies, and harvesting contents there online.

Global memory net: new collaboration, new activities and new potentials

Abstract: In technological terms, it has been a long time since my PROJECT EMPEROR-I – a multimedia interactive videodisc project on the First Emperor of China's famous terracotta warriors and horses in 1984. At that time, PROJECT EMPEROR-I demonstrated that multimedia technology could change the way we seek, demand, and use information. Two decade later, fueled by enormous progress in science and technology, we have come a very long way from the use of interactive multimedia technology in the workstation environment to the global networked environment. We have moved from the use of hardcopy and analog resources to digital content, which users can search, retrieve and use instantly to meet their needs over the global network with no national boundaries. We have also moved from the offering of multimedia content of one specific subject topic to the digital content of all media formats on all related subject topics to the world instantly. We are truly living in a new period of unprecedented opportunities and challenges [1]! So, in this digital era, we have witnessed the exciting convergence of content, technology, and global collaboration in the development of digital libraries [2] with great potential for providing universal information access.

Knowledge organization or information organization : a key component of knowledge management activities

Abstract: This paper focuses on the various bibliographic and information retrieval tools and techniques used for information organization, a key activity in a knowledge management process. The paper begins with the existing debate on the very concept of knowledge management, and looks at some recent papers and arguments on this issue. It then briefly discusses how some projects over the past decade or so have used various traditional bibliographic organization tools for providing access to electronic resources. This follows examples of some sophistical information organization techniques used by some speciality search engines. It is argued that these tools and techniques, although are quite useful, cannot be used as such in a knowledge management environment. A generic model of information access in a knowledge management environment is then proposed, and new areas of research, especially in the context of information organization are discussed.

Australian digital theses program: expansion, partnership and the future

Abstract: The continuing evolution of the Australian Digital Theses (ADT) Program, with the aid of an additional grant from the Australian Federal Government, sees it redeveloping the existing central metadata repository to increase its coverage and utility to the national and international research community. The repository's content will expand to include metadata about all Australian higher degree theses, whether in digital form or not. This goal responds to a clearly stated desire of the Australian research community, and brings together the university, government and corporate sectors, in building an open access service which exposes Australian research.

A research to increase users' satisfaction and loyalty based on the customer satisfaction index: a case study on the national taichung institute of technology's library

Abstract: A good library can make significant contributions to library users. These users are likely to return to the library again and again where service is excellent and materials are accessible easily. The research purpose for this paper is to adopt the European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) on a survey performed on library users to measure users' satisfaction and loyalty factors. A questionnaire is designed to integrate measurement into the library's management system for visual analysis of what users expect from the library. Results from the survey show that users expect more improvement in the “library environment” and “collections of printed publications” section. Conclusions from the study, we were able to make the following suggestions to satisfy users' expectations: (1) increase seating areas for readers, (2) increase collections of printed publications and periodicals to meet readers' demands, and (3) increase the number of duplications on popular literatures.

Constrains in building domain-specific topic maps for the discipline “gender studies in informatics (GSI)”

Abstract: The 21st century has witnessed an overwhelming research output on GSI but due to publication scattering and want of organized database, the outcome of these publications have not been visible to the policy makers and gender scientists. Further, the traditional document management system put a heavy burden on the user in the process of information access, extraction and interpretation. Besides, the absence of domain-specific semantic index in the discipline GSI results in irrelevant retrieval of records resulting in high recall but low precision. In addition, the existing system makes the process of literature-search difficult and time consuming. The exponential growth of literature, the information overload, and the time wasted in searching and browsing in the field of GSI demanded a semantic information processing system. This situation calls for the development of Knowledge Management System (KMS) in GSI by building dynamic (i) knowledge repositories, (ii) semantic index and (iii) knowledge maps and thereby alleviates the problems encountered by the user in the traditional document management system.

Digital libraries: developing countries, universal access, and information for all

Abstract: Digital libraries are large, organized collections of information objects Well-designed digital library software has the potential to enable non-specialist people to conceive, assemble, build, and disseminate new information collections This has great social import because, by democratizing information dissemination, it provides a counterbalance to disturbing commercialization initiatives in the information and entertainment industries This talk reviews trends in today's information environment, introduces digital library technology, and explores applications of digital libraries—including their use for disseminating humanitarian information in developing countries We illustrate how currently available technology empowers users to build and publish information collections Making digital libraries open to all, as conventional public libraries are, presents interesting challenges of universal access

Technical issues on the China-US million book digital library project

Abstract: The China-US Million Book Digital Library Project (MBP) is a cooperated project of universities and institutes in China and USA, with funding from the Ministry of Education of China (MOE) and National Science Foundation of USA (NSF). The objective of MBP is to create a free-to-read, searchable collection of one million books, available to everyone over the Internet. This task will be accomplished by scanning the books and indexing their full text. Based on the plan and experience in MBP, six technical issues are presented in this paper, such as content selection, copyright clearance, data production, metadata creation, digital preservation and access, and quality control. The current status of the project and the future plan are discussed.

Ontological service layer for digital libraries: a requirement and architectural analysis

Abstract: Based on a brief analysis of the emerging challenges and development strategies for digital libraries facing the convergence of the cyberinfrastructure, Semantic Web, and Web Services, the author advocates a new paradigm of digital libraries that encompass knowledge content, context, and communities, using as an example the three-tiered Digital Library Framework of the Chinese Science Digital Library strategic plan. Within this framework, an Ontological Service Layer (OSL) plays the central role as a semantic glue for knowledge-based integration of digital resources, services, and processes. Further analysis is given to the functional requirements of the OSL and a high level architecture of the OSL is presented. An exploration of the structure, faceted ontology components, and possible construction tools of the underline Integrate Ontology System of the OSL is then made to illustrate approaches to implement the OSL.

Digital libraries for education: a progress report on the national science foundation's (NSF) national science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education digital library (NSDL) program

Abstract: The decade since the introduction of the World Wide Web has witnessed dramatic advances in the underlying communication capabilities of the Internet These include greater numbers of access points; increased bandwidth of existing and new networks; growth in the deployment of new transmission technologies (eg various versions of DSL, cable modems, and in remote areas, satellite providers); and the emergence of wireless technologies, from Wi-Fi to WiMax (see wwwwimaxforumorg) Indeed, the ability for the latter technologies to “untether” the user from the Internet is quickly permitting new and in some cases unforeseen uses of the Internet, posing interesting questions and challenges to our assumptions about user behavior and information needs