Provide
access to collections of multimedia information built upon the integration of
text, image, graphics, audio, video (and other continuous media),
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José-Marie Griffiths[1] and Kimberly K. Kertis[2]
[1]Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of Tennessee
[2]Center for Information Studies, The University of Tennessee and Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc.
The University of Tennessee submitted a proposal in conjuction with the University of Pittsburgh in response to NSF's Digital Library Initiative. The primary concern of the proposal is the information content of digital libraries and its usefulness and meaning to multiple user communities. As digital information resources available via interconnected networks proliferate, what can be done to facilitate the identification, selection, retrieval and delivery of needed information content to users, in form and medium preferred, in a cost-effective manner? How can we improve the ability of access mechanisms to extract relevant content, reduce duplication, analyze conflict and present information content in an optimum manner consistent with the users' needs and preferences? Information access mechanisms are complex in scope. For purposes of this paper they contain the following interrelated components:
Provide
access to collections of multimedia information built upon the integration of
text, image, graphics, audio, video (and other continuous media),
representation of information content in an organized way so that users can
identify and select both from among and within various information resources
navigation through and retrieval from both representational and primary
information
presentation of both representational and primary information to users
Each of the three components is integrally related to the other two. Information resources are generally developed with specific groups of potential users in mind. Therefore approaches and methods developed for any one component need to be tested in conjunction with the others so that the entire access mechanism can be tested from the perspective of users in an attempt to answer the questions of: how can interfaces supporting such access be customized for different groups of users; how well do they perform from the user perspective; and how well do the proposed techniques for access perform at varying levels of scale?
The availability of information resources on the ever-expanding network infrastructure makes all resources potentially available to anyone with network access. However, users have varying needs and requirements for information. They have different preferences and behaviors for identifying, locating, selecting, retrieving, receiving and using information. One aspect of this research is aimed at investigating the preferences and behaviors of various users and potential users of environmental information; specifically, identification, representation and selection, retrieval and navigation, presentation and performance approaches that facilitate access to and use of information by these various groups. Approaches to information system development have tended to provide the same user interface to all users, regardless of needs or preferences. Building on results in information science, computer science and cognitive psychology that define different cognitive styles and information-seeking habits we hope to research the effectiveness of different interfaces on users with different styles.
A second key aspect of this research is to test approaches and methods to facilitate user group access to digital libraries at varying levels of scale. Many approaches and methods researched have performed well in experimental and prototype environments, most of them on a relatively small scale. It needs to be determined whether they are robust in terms of performance at various levels of scale, i.e., at what point does performance degrade to levels unacceptable by users.
The two key areas referred to above, can be organized into four components of access: representation, identification and selection; navigation and retrieval; presentation; and performance. Since methods of representation to support the identification and selection of appropriate information resources influence retrieval methods which, in turn influence presentation options, all of which affect performance from the user perspective, research needs to conducted across these four components.
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