Nanoscience and technology is characterized by nano researchers as an increasingly interdisciplinary domain, drawing upon such disciplines as chemistry, physics, materials science, and computer, electrical, mechanical and biomedical engineering. A key challenge faced by information professionals involved in organizing and providing the related information services is to efficiently identify information resources and to carry out inclusive and effective searches in a diverse and heterogeneous range of digital libraries, web-based databases and search engines. This demand emphasizes the importance of thinking about and developing methodological models for investigating interdisciplinary knowledge organization practices. This 2008 study examined the extent of interdisciplinarity in user queries submitted to the NANOnetBASE digital library. Transaction logs of the digital library were analyzed to explore usersâ search behaviour patterns and to examine the extent to which user queries were interdisciplinary. The Inspect thesaurus and Classification codes were utilized the disciplinary or interdisciplinary focus of the queries. The results indicate that 62% of the unique top terms resulting from mapping usersâ query terms to the INSPEC Classification codes represented two or more disciplines, specifically terms associated with the Classification code â Aâ representing â physics.â The results contribute to the development of more critical information organization and classification practices in such an increasingly interdisciplinary domain as nanoscience and technology.

Specialised subject gateways have become an essential tool for locating and accessing digital information resources, with the added value of organisation and previous evaluation catering for the needs of the varying communities using these. Within the framework of a research project on the subject, a software tool has been developed that enables subject gateways to be developed and managed. General guidelines for the work were established which set out the main principles for the technical aspects of the application, on one hand, and on aspects of the treatment and management of information, on the other. All this has been integrated into a prototype model for developing software tools. The needs analysis established the conditions to be fulfilled by the application. A detailed study of the available options for the treatment of information on metadata proved that the best option was to use the Dublin Core, and that the metadata set should be included, in turn, in RDF tags, or in tags based on XML.

Digital Content Management System is a software system that provides preservation, organization and dissemination services for digital collections. By adapting the systems analysis process, the University of Arizona Library analyzed its needs and developed Content Management System requirements for finding a suitable information system that addresses the increasing needs of digital content management. Dozens commercial and open source candidates were examined to match against the requirements. This article provides detailed analysis of three major players (Greenstone, Fedora, and DSpace) in key areas of digital content management: preservation, metadata, access, and system features based on the needs of the University of Arizona Library. This paper describes the process we used to analyze and evaluate potential candidates. We have included results of our analysis to illuminate our process.

This is a preprint of a paper published (with a slighlty different title: TIME - A multi-level framework for the design and evaluation of digital libraries) in the International Journal of Digital Libraries 2(2/3), 170-177. Abstract: Digital libraries promise benefits for all stakeholders in the information usage community which almost certainly will be matched by commensurate shortcomings that are as yet unforeseen. Even though these are very early days for digital libraries, three decades of research on human-computer interaction in general, and the recent history of hypermedia research in particular, indicate that whatever else occurs, the usability of digital library applications will prove crucial to widespread acceptance. In the present paper an evaluation framework (termed TIME) is outlined. TIME offers designers and implementers of digital libraries a framework to address key human factors in a usercentered manner. Bridging all levels of human factors, from the ergomonic to the user goal, TIME is a socio-cognitive framework that highlights the interplay of multiple issues affecting user response to digital documents.

Archeologists have used material artifacts found in a physical space to gain an understanding about the people who occupied that space. Likewise, as users wander through a digital library, they leave behind data-based artifacts of their activity in the virtual space. Digital library archeologists can gather these artifacts and employ inductive techniques, such as bibliomining, to create generalizations. These generalizations are the basis for hypotheses, which are tested to gain understanding about library services and users. In this article, the development of traditional archeological methods is presented and used to create a conceptual framework for the artifact-based evaluation in digital libraries.

This bibliography was created for an ALCTS Collection Management & Development Section program at the 2008 American Library Association Annual Conference. It annotates selected articles published from Jan. 2006 through April 2008.

Digital Library for Earth Science Education, DLESE / The focus of our project was to build functional prototype of the discovery system user interface (UI) for the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE). The prototype had two goals: first to show a proof of concept for the DLESE project and second to provide an initial search and discovery implementation that can be extended to include multiple heterogeneous data collections in future iterations. Our design goal was to ensure that userâ s desired information be easy and convenient to discover via the UI. We focused on three components with this goal in mind: first a keyword search designed so that the most relevant information was returned at the top of the results list. Second a â browseâ search that provided a summary of the resource topology in one simple view. Third a clear and concise presentation of search results that allow users to evaluate desired information quickly. Once the prototype was up and running we conducted user tests. The results of these tests and our recommendations for future iterations of the DLESE search engine are outlined at the end of this report.

Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / The Illinois DLI Project, one of six projects funded by the NSF/DARPA/NASA DLI, consists of two major components: (1) a production testbed based in a real library (SGML publisher stream deployed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UIUC) and (2) fundamental technology research for semantic interoperability (semantic indexes across subjects and media developed at the University of Arizona). The Illinois DLI production testbed was developed in the Grainger Engineering library at UIUC. It supports full SGML federated structure search on an experimental Web-based interface. The initial rollout was available at the UIUC campus in October 1997 and has been integrated with the library information services. The testbed consist of materials from 5 publishers, 55 engineering journals, and 40,000 full-text articles. The testbed was implemented using SoftQuad (SGML rendering) and OpenText (full-text search), both commercial software.

This paper begins by discussing the various meanings of metadata both on and off the Web, and the various uses to which metadata has been put. The body of the paper focuses on the Web and the roles that metadata has in that environment. More specifically, the primary concern here is for metadata used in resource discovery, broadly considered. Metadata for resource discovery is on an evolutionary path with bibliographic description as an immediate predecessor. Its chief exemplar is the Dublin Core and its origins, nature and current status will be briefly discussed. From this starting point, the paper then considers the uses of such metadata in the Web context, both currently and those that are planned for. The critical issues that need addressing are its weaknesses for achieving its purposes and alternatives. Finally, the role of libraries in creating systems for resource discovery is considered, from the perspective of the gains made to date with the Dublin Core, the difficulties of merging this effort with traditional bibliographic description (aka MARC and AACRII), and what can be done about the gap between the two. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright Robert H. McDonald and Chuck Thomas 2006. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors. / Electronic performance support tools are used in many workplaces, but digital libraries have not evaluated their potential usefulness. In a pilot project, the Florida State University Libraries developed inexpensive performance support tools for three types of in-house digital publishing. This strategy improved productivity and quality control. (Author abstract)