The NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Libraries Initiative: Opportunities for HCI Research

Moderator: William Hefley
Software Engineering Institute & Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412) 268-7793
weh@sei.cmu.edu

Panelists: Ann Bishop, University of Illinois
Barbara Buttenfield, State University of New York, Buffalo
Joseph Janes, University of Michigan
Scott Stevens, Carnegie Mellon University
Nancy Van House, University of California, Berkeley
Terry Winograd, Stanford University

© ACM

Abstract

Keywords:

Introduction Digital Libraries have been identified as a "National Challenge" in the Information Infrastructure Technology Applications component of the U.S. High Performance Computing and Communications Program (HPCC). National Challenges are fundamental applications that have broad and direct impact on the nation's competitiveness and the well-being of its citizens, and that can benefit from the application of HPCC technology and resources.

Six four-year projects have begun to develop new technologies for digital libraries. Each project combines university researchers and users with organizations including libraries, museums, publishers, government laboratories, schools, and computer and communications companies. The research is funded by a joint initiative of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The projects are centered at Carnegie Mellon University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Michigan; the University of Illinois; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Stanford University. In funding these projects NSF has stated that it is taking the next step towards making available vast stores of knowledge and innovative information services to researchers, students, educators, and the general public.

One of the principle goals for the initiative is to establish better linkages between fundamental science and technology development upon which key aspects of the National Information Infrastructure depend. To that end, panel members will discuss their individual projects and highlight opportunities for cooperative research in human-computer interaction.

PANELISTS:

Research based in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science will encompass sociological evaluation of the testbed, technological development of semantic retrieval, and prototype design of future scalable information systems (the Interspace). Partners in the project include the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Arizona, Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Physical Society, Institute of Physics, John Wiley & Sons, and U.S. News & World Report. Industrial partners include: United Technologies, Softquad, BRS/Dataware, and Spyglass.

Barbara Buttenfield is Associate Professor of Geography, Department of Geography and Research Scientist, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, State University of New York, Buffalo (SUNY- Buffalo). She is working on University of California, Santa Barbara's Project Alexandria. Project Alexandria will develop a digital library providing easy access to large and diverse collections of maps, images and pictorial materials as well as a full range of new electronic library services. The project is centered at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with its major collections of maps and images and its strong research focus in the area of spatially-indexed information. It also involves SUNY-Buffalo, the University of Maine and several industrial partners. The project will begin with collections of digitized maps, images and airphotos relating to Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties using software developed for geographical information systems. Over four years, the project will grow to include other components at UCSB, SUNY-Buffalo, the Library of Congress, the United States Geological Survey and the St. Louis Public Library, as well as other interested libraries.

Joseph Janes is Assistant Professor, School of Information and Library Studies, University of Michigan. This project is conducting coordinated research and development to create, operate, use, and evaluate a large-scale continually evolving multimedia digital library. The content focus of the library will be earth and space sciences. Potentially connecting thousands of users and information repositories, the library system will be designed to meet the need for systemizing the vast amount of information on an array of topics available on the Internet. A critical component of the project is the testing and evaluation of the prototype system by a wide variety of users, including those from on-campus, local high schools, and public libraries. Commercial sponsors include IBM, Elsevier Science, Apple Computer, Bellcore, UMI International, McGraw-Hill, Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, and Kodak.

Scott Stevens is Senior Member of the Technical Staff at the Software Engineering Institute and a member of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. The Informedia(tm) Project is developing new technologies for creating full-content search and retrieval digital video libraries. The project partners include WQED Pittsburgh, one of the primary producers of programming for the Public Broadcasting Service, Digital Equipment Corporation, Microsoft, and Bell Atlantic. The project is creating a testbed that will enable K-12 students to access, explore, and retrieve science and mathematics materials from a digital video library containing 1,000 hours of video. The corpus is being selected from the archives of WQED, Fairfax Co. VA School's Electronic Field Trips, and the BBC-produced British Open University video courses.

Digital video and multimedia technology can deliver more information, more effectively than any scheme developed to date. But more than just delivering information, effective multimedia systems require a deep understanding of how users interact with huge volumes of information in many forms. Issues involving human-computer interaction, privacy and security, and utilization under pricing and charging for digital video, will be addressed as part of the research program. Of particular interest are questions of novel user interfaces for searching, browsing, and reusing digital video.

Nancy Van House is Acting Dean and Professor of the School of Library and Information Studies, University of California, Berkeley. This project is producing a prototype digital library with a focus on environmental information. The library will collect diverse information about the environment to be used for the preparation and evaluation of environmental data, impact reports, and related materials. The research prototype is intended for eventual full-scale deployment in the State of California's CERES production systems. To create the prototype, researchers will need to produce technologies which allow untrained users to contribute to find relevant information in other world-wide digital library systems.

Research areas include automated indexing, intelligent retrieval and search processes, data base technology to support digital library applications, new approaches to document analysis, and data compression and communication tools for remote browsing. Partners and collaborators in the project include Xerox Corporation, Resources Agency of California, California State Library, Sonoma County Library, San Diego Association of Governments, The Plumas Corporation, Shasta County Office of Education, and Hewlett Packard.

Terry Winograd is Professor of Computer Sciences, Computer Science Department, Stanford University. The goal of the Stanford Digital Library Project is to develop the enabling technologies to create a "user illusion" of a single large uniform on-line library, composed from the large numbers of emerging individual heterogeneous repositories and services. Our definition of a constituent repository includes everything from personal information collections to the collections in conventional libraries to large data collections shared by scientists. A service may provide for searching, collecting, annotating, disseminating or performing other operations on the information that constitutes the on-line space.

Today users of different computer communications networks are able to communicate effectively with each other because network protocols have become more integrated. The Digital Library Project aims for a similar type of integration at a much higher level than the primitive exchange protocols available for inter- network communications. The goal is to provide high level concepts and protocols that can allow users to access, produce and manage information through interfaces that hide the unimportant details of diversity of materials and service providers. This will require the development of new kinds of user models and associated interfaces to provide a comprehensible and manageable space of items and operations that can span the diverse materials and needs of an on-line community.