Lazerow Lecture, UTK, 20041 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, School of Information Sciences, What, Where, When, and Who: Redesigning the Reference Environment

Lazerow Lecture, UTK, 2004 1

University of Tennessee, Knoxville,School of Information Sciences,

What, Where, When, and Who:

Redesigning the Reference Environment

In Digital Libraries.

Michael Buckland

Samuel Lazerow Lecture, March 31, 2004


In the old days, one could visit a the reference collection and make notes on. . .What, When, Where, Who, Why, and Howusing specialist genres of reference work:• Dictionaries and encyclopedias• Atlases and gazetteers• Chronologies and time-lines• Biographical dictionaries• etc. This has become more difficult in a digital environment.


Some related issues:

Confusion over “genre”: What kind of a document?

Simplistic notions of “multimedia.”

Have digital libraries have been designed backwards?

How could we re-design the functionality of a reference collection in a digital environment? Form should follow function.

Based on work at Berkeley on designing search support, especially the challenge of searching across different media: text, image, numeric data, sound,…


WHAT? Searching by topic, e.g. Dewey, LCSH.

Two kinds of mapping in every search:

• Documents are assigned to topic categories.

• Queries have to map to topic categories

Also mapping between topic systems.

Obviously one would like to search seamlessly across multiple media, e.g. text corpora and socio-economic numeric data series. Is that possible?


Text

Numeric datasets

It is difficult to move between different kinds of document


Text THESAURUS

Captions Numeric datasets

Different media can be linked indirectly via metadata, but in this case you need to specify place also.


Text THESAURUS

Maps GAZETTEER Captions Numeric datasets

Proper name control requires a gazetteer -- and latitude and longitude allow points on maps.


WHERE?

People want to search by place!

For –

• Mammals in Madagascar

• Castles in Quercy

• Hikes in the Himalayas . . .

. . . but libraries provide only weak support.


Geographical search in library catalogs:

• Place name in title – if present - and

• Place names as / in Subject Headings (MARC 6XX$z, 651)

Search of other geographical clues not supported, e.g.:

• Geographical scope note (MARC 043: n-us-id = Idaho)

• Geographical codes in classification numbers, e.g.

the 7946 for San Francisco Bay in Dewey 917.94604

No spatial relationships: Within / near / next / between.

Map interfaces not yet provided


Place names are problematic:

- Variant forms: St. Petersburg, Санкт Петербург, Saint-Pétersbourg, . . .

- Multiple names: Cluj, in Romania / Roumania / Rumania, is also called Klausenburg and Kolozsvar.

- Names changes: Bombay Mumbai.

- Homographs:Vienna, VA, and Vienna, Austria; 50 Springfields.

- Anachronisms: No Germany before 1870

- Vague, e.g. Midwest, Silicon Valley

- Unstable boundaries: 19th century Poland; Balkans; USSR.


BUT places have coordinates: latitude and longitude.

. . . and a GAZETTEER links places and spaces!

A gazetteer is a place name authority file and

. . . indicates what kinds of place: “Feature type” and

. . . objectively specifies latitude and longitude and

. . . disambiguates similar place names and

. . . brings variant names together and

. . . allows places to be displayed on maps.


Project: “Going Places in the Catalog: Improved Geographical Access” (IMLS)

http://ecai.org/imls2002/

Project objectives

(1) Better use of data already in library catalog records for clarification of place and space;

(2) Link online catalogs with online gazetteers;

(3) Map display of search results;

(4) Map interface for spatial queries;

(5) Extend spatial queries beyond library to other resources relating to the same locality.

http://ecai.org/imls2002/


Geo-temporal search interface. Place names found in documents. Gazetteer provided lat. & long. Places displayed on map.

Timebar


Zoom on map. Click on place brings list of records. Click on record displays text.


BUT better standards for gazetteer content and format needed. - Multilingual and multiscript entries - Specialists need specialized Feature Type Thesauri, e.g.

Medieval Chinese administrative units;200 feature types in British canal archaeology.Different kinds of Buddhist temple.

- Always declare which thesaurus is being used - Short generic standard thesaurus for upward compatibility - “Preferred name” always a matter of local choice. - Time codes on records because places and names unstable - Harmonize geotemporal metadata across standards families

Based on: “A Multilingual Gazetteer System for Integrating Spatial and Cultural Resources” (NSF-ITR funded)http://ecai.org/projects/gazetteer/


WHEN? Places and place names have temporal aspects.

Time period names resemble place names.

- Ambiguous: Civil war, Renaissance, . . . which?

- Unstable: The European War, The Great War, World War I

- Periods have objective calendar dates as well as name

- Dates can display in time-lines, chronologies.

So Time period directory design resembling a gazetteer

Place name Kind of place Where (lat./long.) When

Period name Kind of period When (dates) Where


Geographical subject headings with

"Civil war" as chronological subdivision Geographical heading Chronological subdivision

Great Britain Civil war, 1642-1649

United States Civil war, 1861-1865

Spain Civil war, 1936-1939

China Civil war, 1945-1949

Nigeria Civil war, 1967-1970


Catalog search for Civil War. Geo-temporal display of sets of results. Click on choice to retrieve documents.


Text THESAURUS


TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY Timeline Chronology


Place (and time) are broadly important across numerous tools and genres including, e.g.

Language atlases.Library catalogsBiographical dictionaries.BibliographiesArchival finding listsMuseum records, etc., etc.

Biographical dictionaries are heavy on place and time: Emanuel Goldberg, Born Moscow 1881. PhD under Wilhelm Ostwald, Univ. of Leipzig, 1906. Director, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1926-33. Moved to Palestine 1937. Died Tel Aviv, 1970.


BIOG. DICT. Text THESAURUS


TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY Timeline Chronology


BIOG. DICT. 2 BIOG. DICT. THESAURUS 3

Text 2 THESAURUS 2Text THESAURUS

Maps GAZETTEER Captions Numeric GAZETTEER 2 etc datasets GAZETTEER 3

TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY Time line TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY 2 Chronology TIME PERIOD DIRECTORY 3


Linking webpages to library catalogs, gazetteers, etc.

Websites often contain bibliographies.

Another option is to generate a live searches from the a webpage, using the Z39.50 protocol, to search for latest available resources about that topic or place.

Example: See historic sites pages of ECAI Iraq portal of internet accessible resources relating to Iraqi antiquities. Clicking on link generates searches of major U.S. and U.K. research libraries for resources relating to that site.

http://ecai.org/iraq/


Through

- standards

- good practice

- interoperability

an “intermediate infrastructure” like a traditional reference collection could be built and shared.

Thank-you!

Acknowledgments: National Science Foundation, Institute for Museum & Library Services, DARPA, and helpful discussions with Academia Sinica, Alexandria Digital Library project, and others.