[Prev Abstract][Next Abstract][Contents]
Bruce Schatz[1,3], Ann Bishop[1], William Mischo[2], and Joseph Hardin[3,1]
[1] Graduate School of Library and Information Science,
[2] University Library
[3] National Center for Supercomputing Applications University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
contact: Bruce Schatz, NCSA, Beckman Institute, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
emails: bschatz@ncsa.uiuc.edu, bishop@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu, mischo1@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu, hardin@ncsa.uiuc.edu
In the world of the near future, the Internet of today will evolve into the Interspace of tomorrow. The international network will evolve from distributed computer nodes supporting file transfer to distributed information sources supporting object interaction. Users will browse the Net by searching digital libraries and navigating relationship links, as well as share new information within the Net by composing and publishing new objects and links. The Net will thus appear as interconnected spaces of information objects, the Interspace.
We propose two concurrent and complementary activities that will accelerate progress towards building the Interspace. These together construct a model large-scale digital library and investigate how it can scale up to the National Information Infrastructure.
Construction of a digital library testbed for a major university engineering
community, in which a large digital collection of interlinked documents and
databases will be maintained, software to browse and share within this library
developed, and usage patterns of thousands of users spread across the Net
evaluated.
Investigation of fundamental research issues in information systems, information
science, computer science, sociology and economics that will address the
scalable organization of a large digital collection to provide transparent
access for a broad spectrum of users across national networks. Our analysis will
center on the testbed experiment and will form the basis for future system
design.
Keywords: Digital libraries, National Information Infrastructure, information spaces, network information systems, Interspace
[Prev Abstract][Next Abstract][Contents]