This project will try to define a general-purpose language to specify digital libraries and implement them. This language will be based on the 5S framework of streams, structures, spaces, scenarios, and societies. The purpose of this language is: 1) to show the applicability and feasibility of this formal theory; 2) to streamline the complete and complex process of building digital library systems.
Another possible use of the language is to serve as a general framework to solve problems of interoperability as it can serve as a mechanism allowing mappings between DLs with different underlying models. Possible techniques that will be applied in this project include: 1) mapping from the formal definitions of the 5S theory to corresponding computational models; 2) combination of different types and kinds of information models in an IR setting, maybe through the use of Bayesian networks; 3) exploration of relationships with a number of digital library related efforts (e.g., XML, RDF, Description Logics and ontologies, Greenstone's configuration files); 4) validation through an instantiation for a real digital library system, namely Marian.
If time allows, we intend to explore the theoretical aspects of the language to propose improvements on the Marian DL system like incorporation of an inference mechanism through methods and techniques for manipulating Marian's graph-based representation of information to promote consistency and performance optimization.