Scholarly web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) allow users to interact with information and data programmatically. Interacting with information programmatically allows users to create advanced information query workflows and quickly access machine-readable data for downstream computations. With the growing availability of scholarly…

Even in the age of Google, digital repositories can add tremendous value to an institution. Yet creating and maintaining these collections is no small task. Digital repository advocates will concede that the challenges in building and maintaining these collections can daunt even the most intrepid supporters. Three repository directors share their…

Tables are ubiquitous with a history that pre-dates that of sentential text. Authors often report a summary of their most important findings using tabular structure in documents. For example, scientists widely use tables to present the latest experimental results or statistical data in a condensed fashion. Along with the explosive development of…

Personalization of user interfaces for browsing content is a key concept to ensure content accessibility. In this direction, we introduce concepts that result in the generation of personalized multimodal user interfaces for browsing XML content. User requirements concerning the browsing of a specific content type can be specified by means of…

When providing access to digital images, there are three elements to consider: structure, location, and appearance. These considerations are illustrated with two examples--a book and a photograph collection. Each of the elements is then described in detail. (AEF)

Describes the GEM (Gateway to Educational Materials) project being developed to provide enhanced access to lesson plans and other Internet-based educational materials through metadata. Highlights include controlled vocabularies; NIDR (networked information discovery and retrieval); the Dublin Core element set; syntax; prototype interfaces; and…

Explains Minnesota's Foundations Project, a multiagency collaboration to improve access to environmental and natural resources information. Discusses the use of the Dublin core metadata standard for Web resources and describes three studies that included needs assessment, Bridges Web site user interface, and usability of controlled vocabulary in…

Since its humble beginning, Digital Past, a centralized local history digitization initiative at the North Suburban Library System (NSLS), a multitype consortium in Wheeling, Illinois, has now grown into a large centralized collaboration that consists of 32 libraries and a museum as its primary contributors. With Digital Past, there are various…

Describes the Gateway to Educational Materials Project (GEM) at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology at Syracuse University. Explicates the GEM metadata element set and how GEM metadata is created. Discusses the syntactic binding of GEM metadata and the mechanisms for its distribution. Concludes with a brief discussion of existing…

Creating archival descriptions in a digital environment and communicating across the Internet is not the same as traditional paper-based communication. As in other cultural domains, in archival description the medium influences the structure and content of information. The SIASFI Project and the Online Guide to the State Archives of Florence are…

This paper summarizes a subset of the findings of a study of digital image distribution that focused on the Museum Educational Site Licensing (MESL) project--the first large-scale multi-institutional project to explore digital delivery of art images and accompanying text/metadata from disparate sources. This Mellon Foundation-sponsored study…

Reviews issues relating to database technology and digital libraries. Highlights include resource sharing; ongoing digital library projects; metadata; user interfaces; query processing; interoperability; data quality; copyright infringement; and managerial implications, including electronic versus printed materials, accessibility,…

Discusses efforts by the Federal Depository Library Program to make information accessible more or mostly by electronic means. Topics include Web-based locator tools; collection development; digital archives; bibliographic metadata; and access tools and user interfaces. (Author/LRW)

The article reports the results of a usability study of an EAD interface. Findings indicate that subjects had trouble understanding archival terminology and how best to search for information in finding aids. Furthermore, they were not familiar with the structure or contents of finding aids. In addition to building interfaces that minimize…

As more archival metadata and archival records become available online, providing effective interfaces to those materials is increasingly important to give users access. This article describes five approaches from the hypertext and visualization research communities which can be used to improve such access: (1) navigating hierarchical structures,…