Michael Bucklandand Ryan Shaw.

Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative, and School of Information, University of California, Berkeley.

ECAI / PNC Joint Meeting, Taipei, Oct 6-8, 2009.

Convenient Discovery in Suitable Resources: Design Issues

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 2

Textwith a interesting details.Who was she?Where is that?What is this?What else was happening? Reader

(or Writer)

ResourcesEncyclopediasAtlases, place nameBiographical dictionariesDictionariesLibrary catalogStatistical seriesetc., etc. . . . .

In a paper environment, a library is a good place to read and to write because explanations are available.

How do we move this situation into an internet environment?

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 3

Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, 1933-37; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d. 1970.

WHO?

Click a name to search for an internet resource.

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 4

Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, 1933-37; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d. 1970.

WHERE?

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 5

Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, 1933-37; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d. 1970.

WHAT?

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 6

CORPUS

FRAGMENT CONTEXT

Looking outwards: Ad hoc searches

Reference work

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 7

Prototype context finder: Scanned text Named entities

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 8

Cursor over a name highlights every mention of that name in the text.

Prototype context finder: Proper names marked, listed

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 9

Prototype context finder: One click opens menu of specific resources.

Another click sends query and displays response.

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 10

Reading online, The Irish Review, 1911, with place names already identified. Click on Westport, then on links to more info.

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 11

Design implications for office software

• Make Context Finding utilities a standard feature of browsers, wordprocessing software, etc.

• Support easy incorporation of selected resources (like Bookmark libraries).

• Support standard search command languages.

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 12

Design: Reference work publishers

• Provide access to raw data in a structured format (CSV, XML, RDF).

• Use structured URLs, e.g. TOAH.• Support direct search of all indexes, e.g. with separate

URLs.• Accept standard search command languages.• Provide APIs for search.• Offer “EXPLAIN” service, machine-readable as well and

human-readable.

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 13

Design: Librarians, bibliographers

Librarians and bibliographers must move from simply providing access to and description of resources to providing tools and services for aggregating and integrating resources.

• Link to resource EXPLAIN pages.• Easy incorporation of described reference work into

browsers, word processing software, e.g. click and drag.• Union indexes to sets of reference works.• Provide access to Search Term Recommender services.

Oct 2009 PNC/ECAI, Taipei 14

Acknowledgment

This paper draws on work by several people and was partially supported by two U.S. federal government agencies: The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Three projects: - Support for the learner (2004-06) ecai.org/imls2004 - Biographical texts (2006-09) ecai.org/imls2006 - Context and Relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies

(2007-10) ecai.org/neh2007Demos at http://metadata.berkeley.edu/demos/

buckland@ischool.berkeley.edu