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Abstract

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is the central public funding organization for academic research in Germany. It is thus comparable to a research council or a national research foundation. According to its statutes, DFG's mandate is to serve science and the arts in all fields by supporting research projects carried out at universities and public research institutions in Germany, to promote cooperation between researchers, and to forge and support links between German academic science, industry and partners in foreign countries. In the fulfillment of its tasks, the DFG pays special attention to the education and support of young scientists and scholars. DFG's mandate and operations follow the principle of territoriality. This means that its funding activities are restricted, with very few exceptions, to individuals and institutions with permanent addresses in Germany. Fellowships are granted for work in other countries, but most fellowship programs are restricted to German citizens, with a few exceptions for permanent residents of Germany holding foreign passports.

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Abstract

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) program seeks to create, develop, and sustain a national digital library supporting science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) education at all levels -- preK-12, undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning. The resulting virtual institution is expected to catalyze and support continual improvements in the quality of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) education in both formal and informal settings. The vision for this program has been explored through a series of workshops over the past several years and documented in accompanying reports and monographs. (See [1-7, 10, 12, and 13].) These efforts have led to a characterization of the digital library as a learning environments and resources network for science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education, that is: * designed to meet the needs of learners, in both individual and collaborative settings; * constructed to enable dynamic use of a broad array of materials for learning primarily in digital format; and * managed actively to promote reliable anytime, anywhere access to quality collections and services, available both within and without the network. Underlying the NSDL program are several working assumptions. First, while there is currently no lack of "great piles of content" on the Web, there is an urgent need for "piles of great content". The difficulties in discovering and verifying the authority of appropriate Web-based material are certainly well known, yet there are many examples of learning resources of great promise available (particularly those exploiting the power of multiple media), with more added every day. The breadth and interconnectedness of the Web are simultaneously a great strength and shortcoming. Second, the "unit" or granularity of educational content can and will shrink, affording the opportunity for users to become creators and vice versa, as learning objects are reused, repackaged, and repurposed. To be sure, this scenario cannot take place without serious attention to intellectual property and digital rights management concerns. But new models and technologies are being explored (see a number of recent articles in the January issue of D-Lib Magazine). Third, there is a need for an "organizational infrastructure" that facilitates connections between distributed users and distributed content, as alluded to in the third bullet above. Finally, while much of the ongoing use of the library is envisioned to be "free" in the sense of the public good, there is an opportunity and a need to consider multiple alternative models of sustainability, particularly in the area of services offered by the digital library. More details about the NSDL program including information about proposal deadlines and current awards may be found at <http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl>.

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Abstract

PhysNet offers online services that enable a physicist to keep in touch with the worldwide physics community and to receive all information he or she may need. In addition to being of great value to physicists, these services are practical examples of the use of modern methods of digital libraries, in particular the use of metadata harvesting. One service is PhysDoc. This consists of a Harvest-based online information broker- and gatherer-network, which harvests information from the local web-servers of professional physics institutions worldwide (mostly in Europe and USA so far). PhysDoc focuses on scientific information posted by the individual scientist at his local server, such as documents, publications, reports, publication lists, and lists of links to documents. All rights are reserved for the authors who are responsible for the content and quality of their documents. PhysDis is an analogous service but specifically for university theses, with their dual requirements of examination work and publication. The strategy is to select high quality sites containing metadata. We report here on the present status of PhysNet, our experience in operating it, and the development of its usage. To continuously involve authors, research groups, and national societies is considered crucial for a future stable service.

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Abstract

The Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) was established in the late 1990s as a response to several perceived problems of traditional map libraries, notably access and organization. By 1999 it had evolved into an operational digital library, offering a well-defined set of services to a broad user community, based on an extensive collection of georeferenced information objects. The vision of ADL continues to evolve, as technology makes new services possible, as its users become more sophisticated and demanding, and as the broader field of geographic information science (GIScience) identifies new avenues for research and application.

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Abstract

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program comprises a set of projects engaged in a collective effort to build a national digital library of high quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational materials for students and teachers at all levels, in both formal and informal settings. By providing broad access to a rich, reliable, and authoritative collection of interactive learning and teaching resources and associated services in a digital environment, the NSDL will encourage and sustain continual improvements in the quality of STEM education for all students, and serve as a resource for lifelong learning. Though the program is relatively new, its vision and operational framework have been developed over a number of years through various workshops and planning meetings. The NSDL program held its first formal funding cycle during fiscal year 2000 (FY00), accepting proposals in four tracks: Core Integration System, Collections, Services, and Targeted Research. Twenty-nine awards were made across these tracks in September 2000. Brief descriptions of each FY00 project appeared in an October 2000 D-Lib Magazine article; full abstracts are available from the Awards Section at <http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl/>. In FY01 the program received one hundred-nine proposals across its four tracks with the number of proposals in the collections, services, and targeted research tracks increasing to one hundred-one from the eighty received in FY00. In September 2001 grants were awarded to support 35 new projects: 1 project in the core integration track, 18 projects in the collections track, 13 in the services track, and 3 in targeted research. Two NSF directorates, the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) are both providing significant co-funding on several projects, illustrating the NSDL program's facilitation of the integration of research and education, an important strategic objective of the NSF. Thus far across both fiscal years of the program fifteen projects have enjoyed this joint support. Following is a list of the FY01 awards indicating the official NSF award number (each beginning with DUE), the project title, the grantee institution, and the name of the Principal Investigator (PI). A condensed description of the project is also included. Full abstracts are available from the Awards Section at the NSDL program site at <http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/programs/nsdl/>. (Grants with shared titles are formal collaborations and are grouped together.) The projects are displayed by track and are listed by award number. In addition, six of these projects have explicit relevance and application to K-12 education. Six others clearly have potential for application to the K-12 arena. The NSDL program will have another funding cycle in fiscal year 2002 with the next program solicitation expected to be available in January 2002, and an anticipated deadline for proposals in mid-April 2002.

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Abstract

In fall 2004, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) program made new grants in three tracks: Pathways, Services, and Targeted Research. Together with projects started in fiscal years (FY) 2000-03 these new grants continue the development of a national digital library of high quality educational resources to support learning at all levels in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). By enabling broad access to reliable and authoritative learning and teaching materials and associated services in a digital environment, the National Science Digital Library expects to promote continual improvements in the quality of formal STEM education, and also to serve as a resource for informal and lifelong learning. Proposals for the FY05 funding cycle are due April 11, 2005, and the full solicitation is available at <http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf05545>. Two NSF directorates, the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) have both provided significant co-funding for over twenty projects in the first four years of the program, illustrating the NSDL program's facilitation of the integration of research and education, an important strategic objective of the NSF. In FY2004, the NSDL program introduced a new Pathways track, replacing the earlier Collections track. The Services track strongly encouraged two particular types of projects: (1) selection services and (2) usage development workshops. * Pathways projects provide stewardship for educational content and services needed by a broad community of learners; * Selection services projects identify and increase the high-quality STEM educational content known to NSDL; and * Usage development workshops engage new communities of learners in the use of NSDL and its resources.
These three elements reflect a refinement of NSDL's initial emphasis on collecting educational resources, materials, and other digital learning objects, towards enabling learners to "connect" or otherwise find pathways to resources appropriate to their needs. Projects are also developing both the capacities of individual users and the capacity of larger communities of learners to use and contribute to NSDL. For the FY2004 funding cycle, one hundred forty-four proposals sought approximately $126.5 million in total funding. Twenty-four new awards were made with a cumulative budget of approximately $10.2 million. These include four in the Pathways track, twelve in the Services track, and eight in the Targeted Research track. As in the earlier years of the program, sister directorates to the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) are providing significant co-funding of projects. Participating directorates for FY2004 are GEO and MPS. Within EHR, the Advanced Technological Education program and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research are also co-funding projects. Complete information on the technical and organizational progress of NSDL including links to current Standing Committees and community workspaces may be found at <http://nsdl.org/community/nsdlgroups.php>. All workspaces are open to the public, and interested organizations and individuals are encouraged to learn more about NSDL and join in its development. Following is a list of the new FY04 awards displaying the official NSF award number, the project title, the grantee institution, and the name of the Principal Investigator (PI). A condensed description of the project is also included. Full abstracts are available from the NSDL program site (under Related URLs see the link to NSDL program site (under Related URLs see the link to Abstracts of Recent Awards Made Through This Program.) The projects are displayed by track and are listed by award number. In addition, seven of these projects have explicit relevance to applications to pre-K to 12 education (indicated with a * below). Four others have clear potential for application to the pre-K to 12 arena (indicated with a ** below).

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Abstract

A primary goal of the NSDL Materials Digital Library (MatDL) is to bring materials science research and education closer together. MatDL is exploring the various roles digital libraries can serve in the materials science community including: 1) supporting a virtual lab, 2) developing markup language applications, and 3) building tools for metadata capture. MatDL is being integrated into an MIT virtual laboratory experience. Early student self-assessment survey results expressed positive opinions of the potential value of MatDL in supporting a virtual lab and in accomplishing additional educational objectives. A separate survey suggested that the effectiveness of a virtual lab may approach that of a physical lab on some laboratory learning objectives. MatDL is collaboratively developing a materials property grapher (KSU and MIT) and a submission tool (KSU and U-M). MatML is an extensible markup language for exchanging materials information developed by materials data experts in industry, government, standards organizations, and professional societies. The web-based MatML grapher allows students to compare selected materials properties across approximately 80 MatML-tagged materials. The MatML grapher adds value in this educational context by allowing students to utilize real property data to make optimal material selection decisions. The submission tool has been integrated into the regular workflow of U-M students and researchers generating nanostructure images. It prompts users for domain-specific information, automatically generating and attaching keywords and editable descriptions.

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Abstract

For those building digital library services, the organisational barriers are sometimes far more intractable than technological issues. This was firmly flagged in one of the first workshops focusing specifically on the digital library research agenda: Digital libraries are not simply technological constructs; they exist within a rich legal, social, and economic context, and will succeed only to the extent that they meet these broader needs. The innovatory drive within the development of digital library services thrives on the tension between meeting both technical and social imperatives. The Renardus project partners have previously taken parts in projects establishing the technical basis for subject gateways (e.g., ROADS, DESIRE], EELS) and are aware that technical barriers to interoperability are outweighed by challenges relating to the organisational and business models used. Within the Renardus project there has been a determination to address these organisational and business issues from the beginning. Renardus intends initially to create a pilot service, targeting the European scholar with a single point of access to quality selected Web resources. Looking ahead beyond current project funding, it aims to create the organisational and technological infrastructure for a sustainable service. This means the project is concerned with the range of processes required to establish a viable service, and is explicitly addressing business issues as well as providing a technical infrastructure. The overall aim of Renardus is to establish a collaborative framework for European subject gateways that will benefit both users in terms of enhanced services, and the gateways themselves in terms of shared solutions. In order to achieve this aim, Renardus will provide firstly a pilot service for the European academic and research communities brokering access to those European-based information gateways that currently participate in the project; in other words, brokering to gateways that are already in existence. Secondly the project will explore ways to establish the organisational basis for co-operative efforts such as metadata sharing, joint technical solutions and agreement on standardisation. It is intended that this exploration will feed back valuable experience to the individual participating gateways to suggest ways their services can be enhanced.
Funding from the UK Electronic Libraries (eLib) programme and the European Community's Fourth Framework programme assisted the initial emergence of information gateways (e.g., SOSIG, EEVL, OMNI in the UK, and EELS in Sweden). Other gateways have been developed by initiatives co-ordinated by national libraries (such as DutchESS in the Netherlands, and AVEL and EdNA in Australia) and by universities and research funding bodies (e.g., GEM in the US, the Finnish Virtual Library, and the German SSG-FI services). An account of the emergence of subject gateways since the mid-1990s by Dempsey gives an historical perspective -- informed by UK experience in particular -- and also considers the future development of subject gateways in relation to other services. When considering the development and future of gateways, it would be helpful to have a clear definition of the service offered by a so-called 'subject gateway'. Precise definitions of 'information gateways', 'subject gateways' and 'quality controlled subject gateways' have been debated elsewhere. Koch has reviewed definitions and suggested typologies that are useful, not least in showing the differences that exist between broadly similar services. Working definitions that we will use in this article are that a subject gateway provides a search service to high quality Web resources selected from a particular subject area, whereas information gateways have a wider criteria for selection of resources, e.g., a national approach. Inevitably in a rapidly changing international environment different people perceive different emphases in attempts to label services, the significant issue is that users, developers and designers can recognise and benefit from commonalties in approach.
The Renardus project has brought together gateways that are 'large-scale national initiatives'. Within the European context this immediately introduces a diversity of organisations, as responsibility for national gateway initiatives is located differently, for example, in national libraries, national agencies with responsibility for educational technology infrastructure, and within universities or consortia of universities. Within the project, gateways are in some cases represented directly by their own personnel, in some cases by other departments or research centres, but not always by the people responsible for providing the gateway service. For example, the UK Resource Discovery Network (RDN) is represented in the project by UKOLN (formerly part of the Resource Discovery Network Centre) and the Institute of Learning and Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol -- an RDN 'hub' service provider -- who are primarily responsible for dissemination. Since the start of the project there have been changes within the organisational structures providing gateways and within the service ambitions of gateways themselves. Such lack of stability is inherent within the Internet service environment, and this presents challenges to Renardus activity that has to be planned for a three-year period. For example, within the gateway's funding environment there is now an exploration of 'subject portals' offering more extended services than gateways. There is also potential commercial interest for including gateways as a value-added component to existing commercial services, and new offerings from possible competitors such as Google's Web Directory and country based services. This short update on the Renardus project intends to inform the reader of progress within the project and to give some wider context to its main themes by locating the project within the broader arena of digital library activity. There are twelve partners in the project from Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, as well as the UK. In particular we will focus on the specific activity in which UKOLN is involved: the architectural design, the specification of functional requirements, reaching consensus on a collaborative business model, etc. We will also consider issues of metadata management where all partners have interests. We will highlight implementation issues that connect to areas of debate elsewhere. In particular we see connections with activity related to establishing architectural models for digital library services, connections to the services that may emerge from metadata sharing using the Open Archives Initiative metadata sharing protocol, and links with work elsewhere on navigation of digital information spaces by means of controlled vocabularies.

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Abstract

The author holds a chair in Humanities Computer Science at the University of Cologne. For a number of years, he has been responsible for digitization projects, either as project director or as the person responsible for the technology being employed on the projects. The "Duderstadt project" (http://www.archive.geschichte.mpg.de/duderstadt/dud-e.htm) is one such project. It is one of the early large-scale manuscript servers, finished at the end of 1998, with approximately 80,000 high resolution documents representing the holdings of a city archive before the year 1600. The digital library of the Max-Planck-Institut für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt (http://www.mpier.uni-frankfurt.de/dlib) is another project on which the author has worked, with currently approximately 900,000 pages. The author is currently project director of the project "Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Colonensis" (CEEC), which has just started and will ultimately consist of approximately 130,000 very high resolution color pages representing the complete holdings of the manuscript library of a medieval cathedral. It is being designed in close cooperation with the user community of such material. The project site (http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de), while not yet officially opened, currently holds about 5,000 pages and is growing by 100 - 150 pages per day. Parallel to the CEEC model project, a conceptual project, the "Codex Electronicus Colonensis" (CEC), is at work on the definition of an abstract model for the representation of medieval codices in digital form. The following paper has grown out of the design considerations for the mentioned CEC project. The paper reflects a growing concern of the author's that some of the recent advances in digital (research) libraries are being diluted because it is not clear whether the advances really reach the audience for whom the projects would be most useful. Many, if not most, digitization projects have aimed at existing collections as individual servers. A digital library, however, should be more than a digitized one. It should be built according to principles that are not necessarily the same as those employed for paper collections, and it should be evaluated according to different measures which are not yet totally clear. The paper takes the form of six theses on various aspects of the ongoing transition to digital libraries. These theses have been presented at a forum on the German "retrodigitization" program. The program aims at the systematic conversion of library resources into digital form, concentrates for a number of reasons on material primarily of interest to the Humanities, and is funded by the German research council. As such this program is directly aimed at improving the overall infrastructure of academic research; other users of libraries are of interest, but are not central to the program.

Content

Theses: 1. Who should be addressed by digital libraries? How shall we measure whether we have reached the desired audience? Thesis: The primary audience for a digital library is neither the leading specialist in the respective field, nor the freshman, but the advanced student or young researcher and the "almost specialist". The primary topic of digitization projects should not be the absolute top range of the "treasures" of a collection, but those materials that we always have wanted to promote if they were just marginally more important. Whether we effectively serve them to the appropriate community of serious users can only be measured according to criteria that have yet to be developed. 2. The appropriate size of digital libraries and their access tools Thesis: Digital collections need a critical, minimal size to make their access worthwhile. In the end, users want to access information, not metadata or gimmicks. 3. The quality of digital objects Thesis: If digital library resources are to be integrated into the daily work of the research community, they must appear on the screen of the researcher in a quality that is useful in actual work. 4. The granularity / modularity of digital repositories Thesis: While digital libraries are self-contained bodies of information, they are not the basic unit that most users want to access. Users are, as a rule, more interested in the individual objects in the library and need a straightforward way to access them. 5. Digital collections as integrated reference systems Thesis: Traditional libraries support their collections with reference material. Digital collections need to find appropriate models to replicate this functionality. 6. Library and teaching Thesis: The use of multimedia in teaching is as much of a current buzzword as the creation of digital collections. It is obvious that they should be connected. A clear-cut separation of the two approaches is nevertheless necessary.

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Abstract

Grounded on a strong belief that ontologies enhance the performance of information retrieval systems, there has been an upsurge of interest in ontologies. Its importance is identified in diverse research fields such as knowledge engineering, knowledge representation, qualitative modeling, language engineering, database design, information integration, object-oriented analysis, information retrieval and extraction, knowledge management and agent-based systems design (Guarino, 1998). While the role-played by ontologies, automatically lends a place of legitimacy for these tools, research in this area gains greater significance in the wake of various challenges faced in the contemporary digital environment. With the objective of overcoming various pitfalls associated with current search mechanisms, ontologies are increasingly used for developing efficient information retrieval systems. An indicator of research interest in the area of ontology is the Swoogle, a search engine for Semantic Web documents, terms and data found on the Web (Ding, Li et al, 2004). Given the complex nature of the digital content archived in digital libraries, ontologies can be employed for designing efficient forms of information retrieval in digital libraries. Knowledge representation assumes greater significance due to its crucial role in ontology development. These systems aid in developing intelligent information systems, wherein the notion of intelligence implies the ability of the system to find implicit consequences of its explicitly represented knowledge (Baader and Nutt, 2003). Knowledge representation formalisms such as 'Description Logics' are used to obtain explicit knowledge representation of the subject domain. These representations are developed into ontologies, which are used for developing intelligent information systems. Against this backdrop, the paper examines the use of Description Logics for conceptually modeling a chosen domain, which would be utilized for developing domain ontologies. The knowledge representation languages identified for this purpose are Web Ontology Language (OWL) and KArlsruhe ONtology (KAON) language. Drawing upon the various technical constructs in developing ontology-based information systems, the paper explains the working of the prototypes and also presents a comparative study of the two prototypes.

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Abstract

The European Commission's goal for Europeana is to make European information resources easier to use in an online environment. It will build on Europe's rich heritage, combining multicultural and multilingual environments with technological advances and new business models. The Europeana prototype is the result of a 2-year project that began in July 2007. Europeana.eu went live on 20 November 2008, launched by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media. Europeana.eu is about ideas and inspiration. It links the user to 2 million digital items: images, text, sounds and videos. Europeana is a Thematic Network funded by the European Commission under the eContentplus programme, as part of the i2010 policy. Originally known as the European digital library network - EDLnet - it is a partnership of 100 representatives of heritage and knowledge organisations and IT experts from throughout Europe. They contribute to the work packages that are solving the technical and usability issues. The project is run by a core team based in the national library of the Netherlands, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. It builds on the project management and technical expertise developed by The European Library, which is a service of the Conference of European National Librarians. Content is added via so called aggregators, national or domain specific portals aggegrating digital content and channelling it to Europeana. Most of these portals are being developed in the framework of EU funded projects, e.g. European Film Gateway, Athena and EuropeanaLocal. Overseeing the project is the EDL Foundation, which includes key European cultural heritage associations from the four domains. The Foundation's statutes commit members to: * providing access to Europe's cultural and scientific heritage through a cross-domain portal; * co-operating in the delivery and sustainability of the joint portal; * stimulating initiatives to bring together existing digital content; * supporting digitisation of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage. Europeana.eu is a prototype. Europeana Version 1.0 is being developed and will be launched in 2010 with links to over 6 million digital objects.

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Abstract

In this paper, we discuss a user study done at the formative stage of development of a Math Tools developers' community. The Math Tools digital library, which aims to collect software tools to support K-12 and university mathematics instruction, has two synergistic purposes. One is to support federated search and the other is to create a community of practice in which developers and users can work together. While much research has explored the technical problem of federated search, there has been little investigation into how to grow a creative, working community around a digital library. To this end, we surveyed and interviewed members of the Math Tools community in order to elicit concerns and priorities. These data led to rich descriptions of the teachers, developers, and researchers who comprise this community. Insights from these descriptions were then used to inform the creation of a set of metaphors and design principles that the Math Tools team could use in their continuing design work.

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Abstract

The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative was formed to encourage scholarly communication and the sharing of data among researchers who emphasize the relationships between place, time, and topic in the study of culture and history. In an effort to develop better tools and practices, The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative has sponsored the collaborative development of software for downloading and editing geo-temporal data to create dynamic maps, a clearinghouse of shared datasets accessible through a map-based interface, projects on format and content standards for gazetteers and time period directories, studies to improve geo-temporal aspects in online catalogs, good practice guidelines for preparing e-publications with dynamic geo-temporal displays, and numerous international conferences. The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI) grew out of discussions among an international group of scholars interested in religious history and area studies. It was established as a unit under the Dean of International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. ECAI's mission is to promote an international collaborative effort to transform humanities scholarship through use of the digital environment to share data and by placing greater emphasis on the notions of place and time. Professor Lewis Lancaster is the Director. Professor Michael Buckland, with a library and information studies background, joined the effort as Co-Director in 2000. Assistance from the Lilly Foundation, the California Digital Library (University of California), and other sources has enabled ECAI to nurture a community; to develop a catalog ("clearinghouse") of Internet-accessible georeferenced resources; to support the development of software for obtaining, editing, manipulating, and dynamically visualizing geo-temporally encoded data; and to undertake research and development projects as needs and resources determine. Several hundred scholars worldwide, from a wide range of disciplines, are informally affiliated with ECAI, all interested in shared use of historical and cultural data. The Academia Sinica (Taiwan), The British Library, and the Arts and Humanities Data Service (UK) are among the well-known affiliates. However, ECAI mainly comprises individual scholars and small teams working on their own small projects on a very wide range of cultural, social, and historical topics. Numerous specialist committees have been fostering standardization and collaboration by area and by themes such as trade-routes, cities, religion, and sacred sites.

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Abstract

This article describes the journey from the conception of and vision for a modern search-engine-based search environment to its technological realisation. In doing so, it takes up the thread of an earlier article on this subject, this time from a technical viewpoint. As well as presenting the conceptual considerations of the initial stages, this article will principally elucidate the technological aspects of this journey. The starting point for the deliberations about development of an academic search engine was the experience we gained through the generally successful project "Digital Library NRW", in which from 1998 to 2000-with Bielefeld University Library in overall charge-we designed a system model for an Internet-based library portal with an improved academic search environment at its core. At the heart of this system was a metasearch with an availability function, to which we added a user interface integrating all relevant source material for study and research. The deficiencies of this approach were felt soon after the system was launched in June 2001. There were problems with the stability and performance of the database retrieval system, with the integration of full-text documents and Internet pages, and with acceptance by users, because users are increasingly performing the searches themselves using search engines rather than going to the library for help in doing searches. Since a long list of problems are also encountered using commercial search engines for academic use (in particular the retrieval of academic information and long-term availability), the idea was born for a search engine configured specifically for academic use. We also hoped that with one single access point founded on improved search engine technology, we could access the heterogeneous academic resources of subject-based bibliographic databases, catalogues, electronic newspapers, document servers and academic web pages.

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Abstract

From a quantitative and qualitative point of view the ETH Library is offering its users an extensive choice of information services. In this respect all researchers, all scientists and also all students have access to nearly all relevant information. This is one side of the coin. On the other hand, this broad, but also heterogeneous bundle of information sources has disadvantages, which should not be underestimated: The more information services and information channels you have, the more complex is it to find what you want to get for your scientific work. A portal-like integration of all the different information resources is still missing. The vision, the main goal of the project "Knowledge Portal" is, to develop a central access system in terms of a "single-point-of-access" for all electronic information services. This means, that all these sources - from the library's catalogue and the fulltext inhouse applications to external, licensed sources - should be accessible via one central Web service. Although the primary target group for this vision is the science community of the ETH Zurich, the interested public should also be taken into account, for the library has also a nation-wide responsibility.The general idea to launch a complex project like that comes from a survey the library did one and a half years ago. We asked a defined sample of scientists what they expected to get from their library and one constant answer was, that they wanted to have one point of access to all the electronic library services and besides this, the search processes should be as simple as possible. We accepted this demand as an order to develop a "single-point-of-access" to all electronic services the library provides. The presentation gives an overview about the general idea of the project and describes the current status.

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Date

21. 4.2002 10:22:31