Journal of Digital Information (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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252 research outputs found
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Emerging Tools for Evaluating Digital Library Services: Conceptual Adaptations of LibQUAL+ and CAPM
No full textThe paper describes ways to examine how digital libraries are valued by their users, and explores ways of permitting the allocation of resources to areas of user-identified need. Pertinent models from marketing, economics, and library assessment and evaluation are reviewed, focussing on the application of the LibQUAL+TM and CAPM methodologies. Each methodology, which was developed independently, provides a useful framework for evaluating digital library services. The paper discusses the benefits of a combined methodology that would provide even greater potential for evaluation of digital library services
An empirical comparison of the usability for novice and expert searchers of a textual and a graphic interface to an art-resource database
No full textThe present paper reports an experimental test of a prototype graphic and textual search interface for a university database on art-resource works. Novice and expert searchers were tested on both interfaces with performance assessed in terms of search speed and accuracy. Verbal protocols and navigation strategies were also examined. Experts performed significantly faster than novices though both user groups performed slightly (but not significantly) faster with the graphical interface. Furthermore, the graphical interface significantly reduced navigation effort. While there were no significant task accuracy differences, novices failed to complete more searches with the textual interface. Implications of these results for search interfaces to digital resources are briefly discussed
Introduction to a Special Issue on Metadata: Selected papers from the Dublin Core 2001 Conference
No full textDesigning the User Interface for the Físchlár Digital Video Library
No full textA framework for designing video content browsers that are based on browsing keyframes and are used in digital video libraries is presented. Based on a review of existing ideas and systems, we derive a design space to compare existing browser interfaces and to specify new interface ideas in a more systematic way. This design space is used to illustrate three distinctive video browser interfaces we have developed. Results and analysis of user testing on these browsers are also presented, informing refinements and further insights into video browser design. These browsers have been integrated into an experimental digital video library called Físchlár, currently widely used within our university campus. Obtaining usage information from this system allows us to develop some of the desirable features in future interfaces to digital video libraries
Chinese Buddhist texts for the new Millenium — The Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) and its Digital Tripitaka
No full textThis paper deals mostly with work by the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) in preparing an electronic edition of a large collection of Chinese Buddhist texts. A short opening section about the history and significance of these texts is followed by a sketch of the digitization efforts prior to the CBETA project. The main part of the paper provides some background on the organizational structure and aims of CBETA, and then describes key aspects of the CBETA project, which are, among others: focus on quality assurance of existing electronic data, not foremost on input; reliance on open standards like the TEI Guidelines, XML and Unicode. The paper closes with an assessment of open questions, including the different formats for distribution of texts currently used by CBTEA, the reasons for their choice and the problems encountered. This will also touch on some more general questions concerning the distribution and continuing development of electronic ressources
Towards a Core Ontology for Information Integration
No full textIn this paper, we argue that a core ontology is one of the key building blocks necessary to enable the scalable assimilation of information from diverse sources. A complete and extensible ontology that expresses the basic concepts that are common across a variety of domains and can provide the basis for specialization into domain-specific concepts and vocabularies, is essential for well-defined mappings between domain-specific knowledge representations (i.e. metadata vocabularies) and the subsequent building of a variety of services such as cross-domain searching, browsing, data mining and knowledge extraction. This paper describes the results of a series of three workshops held in 2001 and 2002 which brought together representatives from the cultural heritage and digital library communities with the goal of harmonizing their knowledge perspectives and producing a core ontology. The knowledge perspectives of these two communities were represented by the CIDOC/CRM [31], an ontology for information exchange in the cultural heritage and museum community, and the ABC ontology [33], a model for the exchange and integration of digital library information. This paper describes the mediation process between these two different knowledge biases and the results of this mediation - the harmonization of the ABC and CIDOC/CRM ontologies, which we believe may provide a useful basis for information integration in the wider scope of the involved communities
Writing the Web
No full textTed Nelson\u27s Xanadu remains an influential example of the way a world wide hypertext system should have been, allowing free access to hypertext pages for content customization and editing. This is still impossible or unacceptably difficult on the World Wide Web. Yet, the Web cannot be replaced, given the amount of data and tools that rely on its basic protocols and languages. The vision presented here is of an evolution of the Web where, within the current framework of technologies and tools, every Web page can be edited and customized, links can be created, and collaboration can be set up. In a way, this is a vision of Xanadu coming to life again, but within the framework of Web technologies, styles and tools. It is a vision of the best possible approach to a fully writable, distributed hypertext system within the limitations of real-life protocols. This writable web, already partially available with blogs and wikis, is enhanced through the implementation of xanalogical storage to take care of individual changes to documents, and mechanisms for transclusions. IsaWiki, a client-server system being developed at the University of Bologna, is presented and shown to adhere to this vision of the writable web, and as being a first step in that direction