Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval

Structural and semantic interoperability have been the focus of digital library research in the early 1990s. Many research works have been done on searching and retrieving objects across variations in protocols, formats, and disciplines. As the World Wide Web has become more popular in the last ten years, information is available in multiple languages in global digital libraries. Users are searching across the language boundary to identify the relevant information that may not be available in their own language. Cross-lingual semantic interoperability has become one of the focuses in digital library research in the late 1990s. In particular, research in cross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) has been very active in recent conferences on information retrieval, digital libraries, knowledge management, and information systems. The major problem in CLIR is how to build the bridge between the representations of user queries and documents if they are of different languages.

Using Multi-Document Summarization to Facilitate Semi-Structured Literature Retrieval

This chapter examines the techniques behind a user interface that computes a multi-document summary of documents retrieved by a search. As a user’s query can retrieve thousands of relevant documents, it is paramount that they be logically organized. In digital libraries, documents are traditionally represented as a ranked list of documents ordered by computed relevance and do not take into account presentation techniques used by information professionals (such as librarians) in the physical library. This chapter examines a framework used in a consumer healthcare digital library that incorporates techniques used by librarians. It brings together commonalities between documents and highlights their salient differences to target the needs of users using the browsing and searching modes of information seeking. It achieves this by discovering common and unique topics among its input from a combination of structural and lexical cues.

Information Filtering and Personalization Services

Personalization service is becoming one of the core services in digital libraries, and an exciting and challenge research area. In this chapter, we analyze several key technologies and the related works in information filtering and personalized services, and then present a content-based personalized searching algorithm and a probabilistic model to represent user interests, which is more effective than the vector space model by the experiments. To solve the data sparsity and scalability problems in collaborative filtering, we present new methods for similarity computation and instance selection. The experiments show it is higher predicted precision and performance than the others. Based on the above research results, we design and develop a prototype, TH-PASS, which provides personalized searching and recommending services.

Sharing Digital Knowledge with End-Users

This chapter portrays how resources of the International Rice Research Institute Library and Documentation Service are harnessed to develop its collection of technical rice literature and other information sources by searching, selecting and organizing print and electronic resources for addition to its Web page or the online catalog. With the acquisition of an integrated library system in 1996, the creation of its home page, at http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org, became a major concern. Links to digital resources, like Web sites, databases, full-text electronic journals and newspapers, and reference materials are now available through this page. The Library operates on the principle that electronic resources must supplement rather than replace printed sources. The author intends to share the mechanics of linking digital knowledge with users, the problems embedded in this activity, and possible ways of dealing with them.

Dynamic Metadata Management System for Digital Archives

This chapter describes metalogy, an XML/metadata framework that can handle several different metadata formats. Metalogy was developed under the Digital Museum Project funded by the National Science Council of Taiwan. It is common to have different data types and catalog formats even within one organization. In order to accommodate a variety of objects, it is often necessary to adopt several metadata formats. Thus, when designing a metadata management system, one needs to be able to handle heterogeneous metadata formats. XML, being a standard gaining increasing popularity, is also often used as data format so that exchange between data can be done in a uniform way.

A Snapshot of Digital Library Development

This chapter highlights selective key issues and assesses the current situation of digital library development in the Asia Pacific under the broad categories of design architecture and systems, implementation issues and challenges, use and impact, and users and usability. Emphasis on cross-cultural and cross-lingual research would especially be beneficial to address the diversity and richness of the heritage, cultures and languages of this region. Nonetheless, a fundamental digital divide problem poses the greatest challenge as almost 70% of the population of the countries of Asia Pacific has little or no connectivity to the digital world. Concerted international collaborative efforts are much needed, not only to push ahead with the various aspects of the digital library research agenda and realize the global digital library vision of the future, but to derive novel solutions to eliminate or close the gap of digital divide across various parts of the world.

Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluations of the Singapore National Library Board's Digital Library

As part of the Singapore National Library Board’s (NLB) on-going efforts to improve the usefulness and usability of the eLibraryHub in meeting users’ needs, this chapter reports two empirical studies – a quantitative and a qualitative study – conducted on the eLibraryHub, the NLB Digital Library. In the quantitative study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the eLibraryHub from users’ perspectives. Results show that users rated favorably their satisfaction of the overall effectiveness, usefulness and ease of use of the eLibraryHub. They also perceived it as generally quite useful and easy to use. In the qualitative study, we made use of Scenario-Based Design and Claims Analysis, to determine the usability of the eLibraryHub. Findings indicate that most usability problems occurred during the interpretation and evaluation stages of navigational actions. It concludes with recommendations on design refinement of the eLibraryHub. The chapter illustrates the rich interplay of quantitative and qualitative data crucial in helping designers/developers to better understand users, uses and usability of deployed systems, to address the dilemma of Carroll’s task-artifact cycle of changing user needs and design possibilities.

Digital Libraries and Society

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 chapter reviews trends in today’s information environment, introduces digital library technology and explores the use of digital libraries for disseminating humanitarian information in developing countries, a context that is both innovative and socially motivated. We demonstrate how currently available technology empowers users to build and publish information collections. Conventional public libraries are founded on the principle of open access, and extending this to digital libraries presents a challenge to human-computer interaction—a challenge that is magnified if open access is extended to those who create library collections too.

Implementation of Next Generation Digital Libraries

To implement the next generation digital libraries, one has to examine both the data and functional aspects of the digital library requirements and understand the existing available technologies. In this chapter, we outline the major implementation issues of next generation digital libraries and review existing standards, tools and related research topics. Due to new kinds of content and metadata, as well as domain- and task-specific usage, the next generation digital libraries will need to handle the representation and storage scheme of metadata and content. Unlike the brick-and-mortar libraries, there are new challenges in metadata harvesting, search and retrieval that require standardized protocols to be adopted across different digital libraries. Finally, some advanced digital library services are also discussed.

Cross-Cultural Design and Usability of a Digital Library Supporting Access to Maori Cultural Heritage Resources

Part of the worldwide appeal for digital libraries (DLs) lies in their potential to preserve cultural heritage resources, to expand access to indigenous resources, and to promote deeper understanding among user communities. As cultural heritage resources are being made into a shared worldwide collection of information resources, cross-cultural design and usability issues of DLs supporting access to such resources become critical concerns. This chapter looks specifically at issues concerning supporting access to Mâori heritage materials available in New Zealand through DL technologies. The chapter commences with an examination of the Mâori culture, the nature and forms of Mâori heritage resources and their specific requirements for representation, organisation and retrieval. It then proceeds to identify a set of critical research issues crucial to the success of such DLs. For these research issues, challenges are identified and potential strategies to meet these challenges are proposed.