Digital Library News
A publication of the IEEE Computer Society
Task Force on Digital Libraries
archives at: http://cimic.rutgers.edu/~ieeedln/
June/July 1997, v.1 no.1
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*** Contents ***
Welcome
Advances in Digital Libraries '97--Conference Report
Current Projects
Announcements
Calendar of meetings and events
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Welcome to the first issue of Digital Library News. This newsletter will
be published three times each year, in July, October, and February.
Digital Library News will act as a brief alerting/reporting service for
those working in the diverse fields which comprise digital libraries.
While we monitor a number of Digital Libraries sources, coverage can only
be as complete as your submissions are. To submit articles and
announcements of events, send a brief report (one to two paragraphs) by
email to Susan Feldman, Editor, sef2@cornell.edu. Be sure to include a
contact name, email address and a URL so that readers can find more
extensive information.
This issue includes a report on the Advances in Digital Libraries 1997
Conference. Balancing the need for information against the desire for
brevity is always difficult. Since the Digital Library News is an
outgrowth of the ADL Conference, we have yielded to the desire to inform,
in as brief a format as possible.
Please send comments and suggestions to me at sef2@cornell.edu.
--Sue Feldman, Editor
**************************************************************
**Advances in Digital Libraries. Conference Report**
Attention turned from technology to the human and political implications of
digital libraries at the fourth Advances in Digital Libraries Conference
held at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, May 7-9, 1997. This new
focus demonstrates that digital libraries have arrived in the information
mainstream. The dramatic spread of the World Wide Web and its associated
technologies has spurred major information providers in the private,
government and academic sectors to create access to large collections of
digital information.
Major speakers at the conference included Larry Irving, Assistant Secretary
of Commerce, Robert Harriss, NASA, Peter House, Smithsonian Institution,
Jay Sanders, American Telemedicine, Association, Bruce Lehman, Commissioner
of Patents and Trademarks, Mary Levering, Copyright Register, Alexa
McCray, National Library of Medicine, and Deanna Marcum, National Digital
Library Federation.
Briefly, here are issues and trends which emerged as major themes at this
conference. For copies of the technical papers which offer solutions to
problems, order the Proceedings from the IEEE Computer Society Press, Los
Alamitos, CA, 714-821-8380, cs.books@computer.org.
=>Policy issues:
1. Implications of a global information infrastructure. While the U.S.
is struggling to apply current intellectual property laws to electronic
materials, the problem has grown beyond our boundaries. We will need an
international agreement to settle issues such as fair use, privacy, or
ultimate ownership of creative works, which are viewed quite differently
in each country. The U.S. will announce its proposed framework for global
electronic commerce on July 1, 1997.
2. New economic models are needed to ensure security of information, as
well as create an atmosphere of trust in digital commerce. In fact, trust
may be more of an issue than security is.
3. Measures of success. Digitizing information is costly, but its
effects are far-reaching. Rather than count the number of materials in the
collection, and the cost per item, a better measure might be number of
users and uses, and the cost per use.
4. Standards. A number of organizations are developing standards for
metadata (National Digital Library Federation, Dublin Core, the Text
Encoding Initiative, Stanford's STARTS), formats (NCSA, Library of
Congress, Netscape, Microsoft) content ratings (WWW Consortium's
PIC--Platform for Internet Content), security and encryption. Who will
coordinate these efforts so that we don't create competing standards?
=>Technical issues:
1. Very large datasets create problems of scale. These include hardware
problems of bandwidth and storage, but also underscore the need for tools
which help users discern patterns within the data. Data manipulation tools
must be designed for interdisciplinary use. They must integrate data from
multiple heterogeneous sources. An important role for data-intensive
government agencies such as NASA is to fund and encourage the development
of experimental tools for data manipulation.
2. Image retrieval requires an improved infrastructure with greater
bandwidth. Compression techniques and storage of data for quick retrieval
of most commonly requested data can not solve the problems created by
transmission of large data sets.
3. New improved filters are needed to sort out the desirable from the
garbage, and the relevant from the irrelevant.
4. How do users interact with digital information systems? Can we
design tools and interfaces to guide users without boring or confusing
them?
5. How do we optimize storage and querying of large databases so that
the most frequently used data is the most easily accessed?
=>New technology
1. Image retrieval. Use of wavelets to index and retrieve images
improves precision and recall as well as response time for retrieval
(Stanford University). Columbia University's Digital News Project instead
matches color, shape and texture in tandem with caption text.
2. Telemedicine. Using commercially available equipment, the American
Telemedicine Association is providing remote access to specialists, coupled
with an online library of medical materials and patient records. A pilot
study in Georgia uses modified television sets to allow physicians to
examine patients in their homes.
=>Multi-organization digital library projects:
1. Library of Congress, National Digital Library. Beginning with the
American Memory Program, in cooperation with several large university
libraries, this program was developed to test the feasibility of converting
historical materials to digital format. The National Digital Library will
contain a core set of American History materials by the end of this year.
Technical conversion specifications are being developed for microfilm,
photographs, and film, as well as selection, description, and metadata
criteria. Additional cooperating institutions are being added. One early
surprise in the study is the interest of non-scholarly users, including
students in all grades from elementary through college.
2. National Digital Library Federation. This Federation, now a program
of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) comprises 15
institutions, including twelve major universities, the Library of Congress
and the New York Public Library.
3. German National Bibliography, 1601-1700. A cooperative cataloging
project among six libraries which digitizes key pages of publications for
the purpose of identifying and differentiating editions.
4. Project MeDoc. Six professional societies in Germany will work
together to manage the transition from paper to electronic scholarly
publishing. As an example, Project MeDoc (Multimedia Electronic
Documents), is a cooperative electronic publishing project among the German
Informatics Society, the FIZ Karlsruhe, and Springer-Verlag. which
currently covers the computer science literature.
=>Trends.
1. More and better filters using adaptive learning techniques.
2. Search systems for multimedia information. The Columbia Digital News
project has developed tools for searching image and text collections,
automatic summarization, tracking news, and information visualization.
3. Electronic journals may replace some paper equivalents.
Professional societies in the U.S. and abroad are establishing full-blown
electronic publishing programs which may supplant, in many cases, their
paper publishing programs. Examples are the ACM, the IEEE, SIAM, and
Academia Europea. All have developed policies and tentative subscription
programs. Technical concerns include choosing an enduring format which
will be portable to new platforms. At present, the choice appears to be
SGML vs. PDF. While SGML may be the logical choice, it is much harder to
implement than PDF. Some publishers are hedging their bets by offering
both.
4. Medicine is one of the most active fields in digital library
development. Examples are projects at the National Library of Medicine,
the University of Iowa, and the Georgia Telemedicine project.
5. Encryption, watermarking, and other security measures are being
implemented commercially. The CORDS online copyright registration system
is an example of a robust application of some of these technologies.
Next year's conference will be held in Santa Barbara, April 22-24, 1998.
For more information, or to submit a paper, contact Terry Smith,
smithtr@cs.ucsb.edu, of Sally Howe, howe@hpcc.gov, the conference
coordinators.
For more complete ADL conference coverage, see "Information Today", July 1997.
******* CURRENT DIGITAL LIBRARY PROJECTS *************
* IBM Patent Server on WWW (http://www.ibm.com/patents/)
IBM is now offers a free public patent server on the World Wide Web. Using
a Web browser, a user can search, navigate and browse information on 26+
years of U.S. patents (now over 2.1 million), and view scanned images of
last 17+ years' patents. New patents are added weekly as they are
published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patents are
hyperlinked by both forward and backward references, and also by U.S. and
international patent classifications. Foreign patents are currently being
considered.
The patent server was developed by the digital library team at the IBM
Almaden Research Center. The original version was made available a year
ago on IBM's intranet in both WWW and Lotus Notes environments, running on
both RS/6000 and Intel platforms. For hardcopy output, the intranet
version offers download (in a variety of image formats), printing, and fax
capabilities. The Internet version provides hardcopy ordering through a
third-party supplier, in addition to printing via Web browser.
The IBM Patent Server runs on a 16-node IBM SP2 supercomputer, using IBM
Network Dispatcher (which was originally developed for the Olympic Games
Web server) to distribute high-volume Web accesses across nodes. The
patent information, which includes all the major fields of a patent as well
as the current patent maintenance status, is stored under IBM DB2. IBM
Net.Data is used to build dynamic Web pages. The database and text index
(over 30 GB) are replicated to support a very high level of workload. The
patent images are stored on 2000+ CD-ROMs (1.5 TB), housed in jukeboxes
controlled by several IBM RS/6000 workstations. Access to Internet is via
IBM Global Network.
The patent database, packaged for the Lotus Notes environment, can be
acquired from IBM for in-house (corporate or departmental) use to assure
privacy as well as to leverage the speed and protection of in-house LAN and
intranet.
* Digital Library Project at CSIRO and ACSys, Australia
(http://www.dit.csiro.au/multimedia.html
http://acsys.anu.edu.au/ax2/Programs/Flagship.shtml#Digital)
ACSys, the Advanced Computational Systems Cooperative Research Centre, and
CSIRO develop and demonstrate enabling technologies including document
management systems, digital media servers, narrowband and broadband
delivery services, and advanced presentation methods that cover digital
media archives and online services.
The Distributed Interactive Multimedia Information Services (DIMMIS)
project is investigating technology to support film and television
researchers in accessing archival footage over broadband networks and is
part of the Digital Media Libraries program of the (ACSys CRC). The
project includes the development of the Film Researcher's Archival
Navigation Kit (FRANK) software system. FRANK is the result of research
undertaken by the Research Data Network Cooperative Research Centre
(RDNCRC). Based at the CSIRO division of Mathematical Information Sciences,
the software system is being tested over Telstra's Experimental Broadband
Network initially using material from Film Australia's Australian Biography
series. The FRANK software has been tested in a small number of film and
television libraries. Details about the FRANK project can be found at
http://www.syd.dit.csiro.au/projects/dimmis/frank/
Another current project - FRAMES - forms a major part of the ACSys Digital
Media Libraries project. Main outcomes of this project include:
- Development of an extensible toolkit for manipulating video data streams;
- Development of an extensible toolkit for manipulating audio data streams;
- Development of video and audio feature recognition and extraction,
including "shot" and "scene" detection (and their audio equivalents),
camera motion effects, object motion effects, sound effects;
- Development of audio/text alignment techniques.
Other proposed research areas within the Digital Media Information Systems
group at CSIRO include language processing for digital media, video
representation and synthesis.
For further details contact Graham Reynolds at graham reynolds @cmis.csiro.au
* "Journalists and the Internet", is a one year project funded by the
British Library which examines the impact of the Internet on the
information environment of one group of highly professional information
end-users: journalists. The project leader is Dr. Dave Nicholas, a leading
figure in the area of journalists and online information, and the advisory
group includes Professor Peter Cole, ex Guardian journalist. For further
information, see:
-http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~pw/ji_home.html - home page, including list of
participants and index to other pages
-http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~pw/ji_diary.html - a list of activities and
events involving the project
-http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~pw/ji_desc.html - a summary of the project proposal
-http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~pw/ji_lit.html - our pre-fieldwork literature
review of the area and prior research
*****************ANNOUNCEMENTS****************************
* National Digital Library Award Competition*
"A $2 million gift from the Ameritech Foundation (http://www.ameritech.com)
to the Library of Congress is enabling U.S. institutions to apply for
awards to digitize their unique collections in American history and-for the
first time-make them a part of the Library's on-line collections, called
American Memory.
This is the second year of a three-year program (details of the 1996-97
Competition are available from the Library of Congress Web site at
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/award/). The 1996/97 winners are institutions
both large and small from across the United States. Their collections to
be placed on-line represent a diversity of subjects in American history for
the period 1850-1920.
The National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress aims to
make millions of items available over the Internet by the year 2000, in
collaboration with other institutions. Ameritech's contribution will help
the Library meet that goal by providing funds to libraries, museums,
archives and historical societies to aid them in the critical, yet
expensive, task of making their unique collections available to anyone with
access to the World Wide Web."
Applications will be available in July, with completed applications due
Nov. 3, 1997 (postmark). Contact Guy Lamolinara, glam@loc.gov, (202)
707-9217 (phone),(202) 707-9199 (fax).
* "International Journal on Digital Libraries" begins publication with
April, 1997 issue. The International Journal on Digital Libraries, is
published quarterly in paper and electronic formats by Springer-Verlag, and
edited jointly by Nabil Adam and Yelena Yesha. Its scope includes agent
technology, user interface design, security/privacy, interoperability, and
issues of policy, economics, and electronic commerce. For more
information, see http://link.springer.de.
* JoDI, the "Journal of Digital Information", is a new electronic journal
with no paper equivalent supported by the British Computer Society and
Oxford University Press, hosted at the University of Southampton Multimedia
Group and mirrored at the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, Texas
A&M University. The journal will support for online discussion of articles,
as well as publication. Access to JoDI will be free at least until December
1998. There is a once-only registration process. For further information,
see http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/.
* The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography Version 9 is now
available from Charles Bailey.
HTML: <URL:http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html>
Acrobat: <URL:http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.pdf>
Word: <URL:http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.doc>
The HTML document is designed for interactive use. Each major section is a
separate file. There are live links to sources available on the Internet.
It is searchable.
Contents cover: Economic Issues, Electronic Books and Texts, Electronic
Serials, Legal Issues, Library Issues, New Publishing Models.
* Cataloging guidelines for electronic resources developed by VIVA (the Virtual
Library of Virginia). are available at:
http://www.lib.odu.edu/~joyce/vivacat.htm.
******************** CALENDAR *******************************
July 23-26, Philadelphia. DL '97, the Second ACM International Conference
on Digital Libraries, held in conjunction with SIGIR97: 20th International
ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval.
For complete program and registration details, see the SIGIR '97 home page
at: http://www.acm.org/sigir/conferences/sigir97/index.html, or write
sigir97@nist.gov). Contact: E-mail: callan@cs.umass.edu, 413-545-4878, fax:
413-545-1249.
Sept. 1-3. Pisa, Italy. First European Conference on Research and Advanced
Technology for Digital Libraries. See http://www.area.pi.cnr.it/ErcimDL/
or contact: Tarina Ayazi IEI-CNR, Tel: +39 50 593401, Fax: +39 50 593503.
E-mail:tarina@iei.pi.cnr.it.
Sept. 29-Oct. 3. Calgary, British Columbia, Canada. Access 97, the fifth
national conference devoted to web-based technological issues surrounding
information provision and access in the library environment. For
information and to register, see http://www.ucalgary.ca/library/access97/.
Contact: Linda Pearce, MacKimmie Library, University of Calgary
(403)220-6648, Fax (403)284-3817, e-mail: pearce@acs.ucalgary.ca.
Sept.29 - October 2. Dortmund, Germany. HYPERTEXT - INFORMATION RETRIEVAL -
MULTIMEDIA (HIM'97). In Cooperation with German Informatics Society (GI)
Austrian Computer Society (OCG) Swiss Informaticians Society (SI) See:
http://ls1-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/HIM97/. Contact: Joerg
Westbomke,University of Dortmund Computer Science ID-44221
Dortmund,Germany. Tel.: (+49) 231-755-6326, Fax: (+49) 231-755-6555.
e-mail: him97@ls1.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
November 2-7, Dallas, TX. Multimedia Storage and Archiving Systems II
(Part of SPIE's International Symposium on Voice, Video and Data
Communications). See: http://www.spie.org/info/W97_home.html
November 8-14, Seattle, WA. ACM MULTIMEDIA'97
Sponsored by ACM SIGMM, SIGCOMM, SIGGRAPH, SIGLINK and SIGMIS. See:
http://www.acm.org/sigmm/MM97 or http://www.uni-mannheim.de/acm97. Contact:
Ephraim P. Glinert, Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, Troy, NY 12180. Tel. (518) 276 2657, Fax: (518) 276 4033
E-mail: glinert@cs.rpi.edu.
Nov. 16 -19, Monterey, CA. INTERNET LIBRARIAN '97
Sponsored by Information Today, Inc. See: http://www.infotoday.com.
Contact: Jane Dysart, Conference Chair. Dysart & Jones Associates, 47
Rose Park Drive,Toronto, Ontario M4T 1R2 phone 416/484-6129, fax
416/484-7063 email:dysart@inforamp.net
November 18 - 21, 1997 Tsukuba Science City, Japan. International
Symposium on Research, Development & Practice in Digital Libraries: ISDL'97
See: http://www.DL.ulis.ac.jp/ISDL97/
Contact: Univ. of Library and Information Science
1-2, Kasuga, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan
phone: +81-298-59-1348 (Shigeo Sugimoto), fax: +81-298-59-1093
email: ISDL97@DL.ulis.ac.jp
April 1-3, 1998 EP98 St. Malo, France. EP98 is the seventh in a biennial
series of international conferences focusing on the application of computer
science principles to the production, distribution, and analysis of
documents in all media. The deadline for submission of technical papers is
July 15, 1997. http://www.irisa.fr/ep98 or contact:
Ethan Munson, Dept. of EECS University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Milwaukee,
WI 53201 Phone (414) 229-4438 FAX: (414) 229-2769. Email:munson@cs.uwm.edu
April 22-24, 1998,Santa Barbara, CA. Advances in Digital Libraries '98.
For more information, or to submit a paper, contact Terry Smith,
smithtr@cs.ucsb.edu, of Sally Howe, howe@hpcc.gov, the conference
coordinators.
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Digital Library News acts as a periodic electronic snapshot and alerting
service for the Digital Libraries field. It is published three times a
year, in June/July, October, and February, and is sponsored by the IEEE
Computer Society Task Force on Digital Libraries and by Advances in Digital
Libraries, an annual conference now in its fifth year. Submit articles and
notices of events to Susan Feldman, sef2@cornell.edu. To subscribe to
Digital Library News, send email to:
ieeedln@cimic.rutgers.edu.with the contents:
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