Edward A. Fox
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA 24061-0106
On July 20-21, 1992, the National Science Foundation sponsored a workshop on digital libraries, prompted by an earlier proposal prepared by Lesk, Fox, and McGill, that called for a National Electronic Library for Science, Engineering, and Technology. NSF will fund a good deal of R&Din this area in the 1990s, helping bring to fruition the dreams of such visionaries as Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider.
At the workshop, David Hartzband of DEC recounted experiences of a major multinational corporation involved in office and factory automation. They found that technology alone is not enough, that social and anthropological knowledge is also needed to effect change. Thus, in this unit, which introduces the course and our theme of digital libraries, there will be readings and discussion about the legal issues and essential characteristics of digital media and digital libraries.
To give concreteness to the idea of digital libraries, you will use computer networks to access netlib, an electronic archive for numerical and mathematical software and related information. This will also illustrate how semi-interactive querying can be carried out using electronic mail (or xnetlib).
Since during this course we will be making use of the rapidly expanding digital library that is being developed in Project Envision, it is important to understand the background to that effort. The article on ACM Press Database and Electronic Products describes earlier work toward an ACM digital library, relates it to products and services for ACM members and other users, and discusses some of the financial and pragmatic aspects of such an archive.
This unit paves the way for discussions of technology, methodology, theory, commercial and research systems for IS&R. It sets the stage for detailed discussions, and introduces the key theme of digital libraries, that was part of legislation introduced by Senator Gore in 1992, and re-introduced in Congress in 1993.
From the Course Objectives a key point is to prepare students to discuss and explain the main issues relating to developing digital libraries and related services. Toward that end, this unit will deal with digital library efforts by ACM and by experts in numerical software, and will explore the legal and conceptual issues relating to the fundamental properties of digital media.
Other, specific objectives include being able to:
There are three main types of effort required. First, the readings (see the second from last section) should be carefully studied, keeping unit objectives in mind (see the third section). Second, students should prepare for and engage in the group discussions, drawing upon the readings and other resources (see next subsection). Third, students should use electronic mail (or xnetlib) to carry out the Exercises relating to netlib (see subsection after debate discussion).
The class will break into groups. Each will be assigned 3 questions. Think about your group's debate topics, since people involved in that discussion group must discuss them (either pro or con). After your group has a discussion on its 3 topics totalling about 45 minutes, work together to send an email summary to the instructor, that has the name of each person in the group, and gives the consensus viewpoint on each of your 3 topics. Do a careful job in writing, with different people playing different roles (see discussion under Course Format). Rotate the roles for each different topic.
In this exercise you will send email to netlib, following the instructions in the article [2]. See /u1/README/netlib on fox.cs.vt.edu (or, click here with Mosaic or Netscape) for current instructions, which involve sending mail to the netlib@ornl.gov system. Alternatively, you can run the xnetlib program (which in most CS dept. machines is located in /usr/local/X11R5/bin). Another alternative is to click here with Mosaic or Netscape; xnetlib is no longer supported now that WWW browsers can access information directly.
Please send a copy of all results you receive to the instructor for review.
Here are some hints:
Note: For information on all articles for the course, click here with Mosaic or Netscape.
Note: A new report on digital libraries and related research opportunities may be of interest. This includes definitions and use scenarios. Use a WWW browser to access Interoperability, Scaling, and the Digital Libraries Research Agenda.
This article describes the early work on ACM Press Database and Electronic Products, and plans for the future. The research aspects of this program have been carried forward into Project Envision, and ACM Headquarters and the Publications Board, along with the Electronic Publishing Volunteer Advisory Committee, are coordinating work on a plan that will include an electronic archive and electronic submissions.
Paragraph 1 gives a snapshot of the status, which is amplified at the end of the Introduction. The earlier part of the Introduction describes in general terms what technological and related advances have made digital libraries possible.
The last 3 paragraphs of Vision are important, dealing with collection building, standards, and the main classes of services. The Challenges section calls for more vision and ideas (such as those given in the first paragraph of the Opportunities section), then for focused R&D, and finally for work on economic, social and legal issues. Funding will be needed from ACM SIG's (paragraph 2) and from partnerships (paragraph 3).
The Organization and Acknowledgments sections are not relevant. However, the Proposals section gives important guidance regarding what to look for in developing information products, services, or even multimedia information packages.
This article gives valuable insight into copyright and legal matters, but is especially helpful in pointing out important characteristics of digital media. The six characteristics should be carefully studies and pondered. The last one, on nonlinearity, should be re-read after completion of Unit 8 on Hypertext. Note that Ms. Samuelson's husband is Robert Glusko, who has been very active in R&Drelating to hypertext.
The second section, on Replication, explains an influential court case and its implications, and discusses several clever schemes for generating revenue in connection with electronic publishing.
Key to our course are the remaining sections. Transmission and Multiple Use are essential parts of digital libraries, but there are serious dangers of piracy. Plasticity is one of the key added values of digital media, but protecting authors' rights will demand careful balancing of this benefit with the need for extending copyright protection to changes. Equivalence issues relate to multimedia, but are not clearly explained here. Compactness is not really the theme of the next section - rather it is about storage cost-effectiveness and storage hierarchies, an idea which dates back to such discussions as [3]. Issues of nonlinearity will be dealt with later in the course, but are previewed in an interesting way here.
The netlib system was one of the first to provide electronic mail-based access to archives, and serves the scientific computing community. This short article describes how the system works and can be used (though details and addresses have changed!), summarizes the contents of the archive, briefly explains the server, gives advantages and disadvantages, and closes with a list of needed future enhancements and opportunities.