Onion Patch(sm):

New Age Public Access Systems

"A Third Generation OPAC should be 'usable at sight'."
Finnbar Joy, Extending the Third Generation OPAC. ITs News 32, 1995, 27-32

PROJECTS, RESEARCH, PRODUCTS and SERVICES

City University, School of Informatics, Department of Information Science, Centre for Interactive Systems Research, London, England, UK

Project Name
Okapi (Online Keyword Access to Public Information)

Principal Investigators
Micheline Hancock-Beaulieu (mmhb@is.city.ac.uk)

Stephen Walker (sw@is.city.ac.uk)

Project Summary
The original "purpose of Okapi was to test the applicability, in the online catalogue context, of findings from research in interactive computer systems, cognitive psychology and information retrieval (IR)." A key aim of the project was to provide support to users during searching.

Among the features incorporated into the Okapi system during the course of its development were natural language query input, 'best match' ranking of search results, word stemming, spelling correction, cross-referencing of synomyms, automatic query expansion, (AQE) and relevance feedback. Recent enhancements include the incorporation of a thesaurus into the search process, interactive query expansion (IQE), and development of a 'user-configurable' interface within a graphical user interface (GUI) environment.

The Okapi project originated at the Polytechnic of Central London, now Westminster University, in 1982 and continued at the City University beginning in July 1989.

Demonstration or Protype Access
http://www.cs.city.ac.uk/research/cisr/okapi/okapi.html
References
FIELDHOUSE, M. and HANCOCK-BEAULIEU, M. The Changing face of Okapi. Library Review (Glasgow, Scotland) 43(4), 1994, 38-50.

HANCOCK-BEAULIEU, M. Query expansion: advances in research in online catalogs. Journal of Information Science 18 (2), 1992,99-103.

MITEV, N.H., VENNER, G.M. and WALKER, S. Designing an online public access catalogue: Okapi, a catalogue on a local area network. British Library, London, 1985. (Library and information research report 39).

Overview: Early Okapi Projects 1983-1990. Technical report, Centre for Interactive Systems Research, Department of Information Science, School of Informatics, Department of Information Science, City University, London.

WALKER, S. Improving subject access painlessly: recent work on the Okapi projects. Program 22(1), 1988,21-31.

WALKER, S. OKAPI: Evaluating and enhancing an experimental online catalog. Library Trends 35(4), 1987, 631-645.

WALKER, S. and DEVERE, R. Okapi: developing an intelligent interactive online catalogue. Vine 71, 1988,4-11.

Fretwell-Downing Informatics Ltd., Sheffield, England, UK

Product Name
OLIB (Oracle Libraries)

Principal Investigator
Fretwell-Downing Informatics Ltd. (libraries@fdgroup.co.uk)
Product Summary
OLIB (formerly known as Oracle Libraries) is a state-of-the-art information management system, now based on Oracle7, the advanced relational database management system available. OLIB adhers to open systems, combined with full library functionality, advanced multimedia capabilities and integration of a wide variety of local and global information resources.

"OLIB offers sophisticated searching facilities, based on the OKAPI research at City University in London, which identified the problems that users face when trying to find relevant information. The system ... retrieve[s] any relevant information, irrespective of the way in which the search was entered, and then rank results so that the best information is displayed first."

"OLIB offers integrated and consistent access to a wide variety of local and global learning and information resources. ...[and] hold any type of information that you might want to store and retrieve, regardless of format or location, eg books and serials, photographs and video clips, locally word processed documents, computerised references and electronic learning resources. A single search migh retrieve a variety of media and, if required, the actual information can be delivered to the user's desktop," ... including Internet resources.

"The latest version of the OLIB searching mechanism has been designed to look like Word for Windows. Users are therefore encouraged to use the system as it is familiar. All the standard Windows features are incorporated to ensure that the system is as intuitive as possible."

References
BANKS, B. Oracle Libraries - multimedia and windows OPAC. Vine 90, 1993,14-23.

JOY, F. Extending the Third Generation OPAC. ITs News 32, 1995,27-32.

OLIB Information Management System: The New Release of Oracle Libraries, Product information, Fretwell-Downing Informatics Ltd., Sheffield, England, UK.

Library of Congress, Information Technology Services, Washington, D.C., USA

Project Name
The Library of Congress Catalog (Experimental)

Principal Investigator
Dean Wilder (dwil@loc.gov)
Product Summary
"This is one of the Library of Congress' first experiments at making both its cataloging and digital library resources available over the World Wide Web through a single, user-friendly interface. The interface consists of the previous search query page and brief help files which link directly from significant words on the search query page. By exploiting the powerful synergies of hyperlinking and a relevancy-ranked search engine (INQUERY from Sovereign Hill), it is hoped this catalog will provide a new and more intuitive way of searching the traditional OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog)."

"Besides the cataloging records for over 4 million books; ... 263,000 motion pictures; 200,000 sound recordings and scores; more than 150,000 maps; and 4,300 computer files .., this catalog also contains the cataloging for almost 140,000 photographs and manuscripts in the National Digital Library Program's American Memory, linking to more than 70,000 digital photographs and images available online." "... [L]inks are also provided to the fulltext of over 2,500 online books from sites across the Internet."

"The real strength of this catalog lies in its ability to show the relationships between free text terms, controlled vocabularies (e.g., Library of Congress Subject Headings), and classification schedules. As more and more government and other public domain documents become available in fulltext, these can be linked to cataloging records to provide a single point of entry to the emerging national digital library infrastructure. This will allow users to experience enriched, controlled vocabulary searching with relevancy ranking which will enable them to quickly identify, locate and access materials that have been converted to digital formats at multiple institutions, not only the Library of Congress."

"While this catalog does not replace existing Library of Congress systems, the principle it exhibits of immediate access to fulltext materials and digital objects will hopefully encourage the migration of existing systems, both here and elsewhere, in a similar direction." "The retrieval system used on this database is INQUERY, developed by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst."

Demonstration or Prototype Access
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/catalog/
References
CALLAN, J.P., CROFT, W.B. and BROGLIO, J. TREC and TIPSTER experiments with INQUERY. Information Processing and Management 31(3), 1995, 327-343.

INQUERY System Overview. Technical report, IR-44, Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval, Center for Real-Time and Intelligent Complex Computing Systems, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1994.

University of Albany, University Library, Albany, New York, USA

Project Name
SuperPAC
Principal Investigators
Trudi E. Jacobson (tj662@cnsvax.albany.edu)

Lynne M. Martin (lynm@seattleu.edu)

Product Summary
SuperPAC is a vision of "an enhanced online public access catalog with features that allows users to better evaluate the wide range of information sources made accessible through new technologies." Two types of OPAC enhancements are proposed: the integrated availability of electronic evaluation sources, and the use of improved and augmented MARC records.

The primary focus of SuperPAC is the concept of the transparent workstation. As a complete workstation, SuperPAC must encompass not only the individaul library's online catalog, but a full range of bibliographic databases and other resources, a variety of electronic journals, and access to bibliographic utilities, among other information sources.

The proposed system recognizes the need for users to critically evaluate identified information and incoprorates access to an variety of traditional and novel evaluation sources, notably book review sources, biographical sources, journal evaluation sources, book publisher information, and local reviews.

The SuperPAC model also incorporates augmented MARC record data that includes evaluative information elements and more fully indexed and searchable fields. An enhanced MARC 555 (cumulative index and finding aid) field, augmented MARC 545 (biographical and historical note), an enhanced MARC 505 (contents note) field, and an enhanced authority file are among the recommended additions.

References
JACOBSON, T.E. and MARTIN, L.M. Merging critical thinking and the electronic library: a visionary perspective of SuperPAC, an enhanced OPAC. Research Strategies 11(3), 1993,138-149.

University of California, Berkeley, School of Information Management and Systems, Berkeley, California, USA

Project Name
Cheshire II
Principal Investigator
Ray R. Larson ray@sherlocksims.berkeley.edu
Product Summary
"The Cheshire II online catalog system was designed to provide a bridge between the realms of purely bibliographical information and the rapidly expanding full-text and multimedia collections online. It is based on a number of national and international standards for data description, communication, and interface technology. The system uses a client-server architecture with X window client communication with an SGML-based probablistic search engine using the Z39.50 information retrieval protocol."

The "design elements of the Cheshire II system represent a significant advance over the simple left-to-right matching of subject headings used in first generation online catalogs, and the Boolean keyword matching used in second generation online catalogs. The Cheshire II system was designed to be a next- or third generation online catalog using advanced information retrieval techniques to improve subject searching performance, help combat the twin problems of search failure and information overload, and to support networked access to global information resources using standardized information retrieval protocols."

Demonstration or Prototype Access
http://128.32.224.173/cheshire/form.html

http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/cheshire/

References
LARSON, R.R. Classification clustering, probablistic information retrieval, and the online catalog. Library Quaterly 61(2), 1991,133-173.

LARSON, R.R. Evaluation of advanced retrieval techniques in an experimental online catalog. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 43(1), 1992,34-53.

LARSON, R.R., MCDONOUGH, J., O'LEARY, P., and KUNTZ, L. Cheshire II: designing a next-generation online catalog. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47(7), 1996, 555-567.

University of Minnesota, Academic and Distributed Computing Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Project Name
GODOT (GopherVR Organized Directories Of Titles)
Principal Investigators
Neophytos Iacovou (iacovou@boombox.micro.umn.edu)

Mark P. McCahill (mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu)

Project Summary
"GODOT (GopherVR Organized Directories Of Titles) is a tool that creates spatial organization of an author's works. Using an ISO Z39.50-1994 client to connect to remote library catalogs, GODOT extracts an author's work in the form of USMARC bibliographic records." It then proceeds to format and classify the MARC records, creating an organization which can be browsed and searched. Users can explore the works of an author using both Gopher and Gopher VR clients. A Gopher client provides linear lists, while GopherVR visualizes the relationship and structure within these lists.
Demonstration or Prototype Access
gopher://boombox.micro.umn.edu:70/00/gopher/Unix/Godot/GODOT%20v0.1

References

MCCAHILL, M.P. and ERICKSON, T. Design of a 3D spatial user interface for Internet Gopher. In Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1995, Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 95-World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, June 17-21, 1995, Graz, Austria.

IACOVOU, N. and McCahill, M.P.GODOT: GopherVR Organized Directories of Titles. Presented at CIKM'95 Workshop on New Paradigms in Information Visualization and Manipulation, December 2, 1995, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

Project Names
MARIAN (Multiple Access Retrieval of Information with ANnotations)
Principal Investigators
Edward A. Fox (fox@cs.vt.edu)

Robert K. France (france@vt.edu)

Project Description
The aim of the MARIAN system, in part, is to rectify the mechanical and conceptual problems associated with the use of online public access catalogs. It offers more effective search and retrieval features beyond those of the well-established Boolean approach. The long-term development goal is to create an 'intelligent' system with broad usability and 'smart' functionalities such as morphology-based matching, query expansion, authority files, linking and terminological aids and direct interfaces. In searching, MARIAN attempts to find the closest match to a query using an approximate matching algorithm. Results of a search are presented in order of best match.

MARIAN has been developed using a specially-developed object-oriented DBMS with a client running under NeXTSTEP on a collection of NeXT computers.

Demonstration or Prototype Access
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5604/Adv/Adv-MARIAN.html
References
CAN, F., FOX, E.A., SNAVELY, C.D. and FRANCE, R.K. Incremental clustering for very large document databases: initial MARIAN experience. Information sciences 84, 1995, 101-114.

FOX, E.A., FRANCE, R.K., SAHLE, E., DAOUD, A. andCLINC, B.E. Development of a modern OPAC: from REVTOC to MARIAN. In SIGIR '93: Proceedings of the Sixteenth International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, June 27-July 1, 1993, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

Project Names
Project Envision
Principal Investigators
Edward A. Fox (fox@cs.vt.edu)

Lucy Terry Nowell (nowell@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu)

Project Summary

Project Envision is a user-centered, multimedia database of the computer science literature, with full-text searching and full content retrieval capabilities.

"Envision features flexible information visualization, displaying search results as a matrix of icons. [E]ach document is represented by an icon in [its] Graphic View, while the Item Summary shows a textual listing of bibliographic information. The Graphic View gives users control over how search results are displayed, by manipulating values assigned to the matrix axes. Users can select the interpretation of icon position along the x- and y-axes, as well as icon color, shape, size,and label. Document attributes that can be shown in the display include relevance, publication year, type, size, author name, and index terms."

"The Envision system consists of specially-developed components: a query server, an object-oriented database management system, a presentation server, and the Envision client. The query server is a vector-space search system (i.e. MARIAN). The object-oriented DBMS deals with many kinds of entities and media types." Bibliographic and full-text sources are encoded in SGML and are converted by the presentation server to HTML for final rendering.

Demonstration or Prototype Access
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5604/Adv/Adv-Envision.html
References
FOX, E.A., HEATH, L.S. and HIX, D. Project Envision Final Report: A User-centered Database from the Computer Science Literature, NSF Grant IRI-9116991: Summary of Completed Project, Project report, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Computer Science, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, 1995.

FOX, E.A., HIX, D., NOWELL, L.T., BRUENI, D.J., WAKE, W.C., and HEATH, L.S. Users, user interfaces, and objects: Envision, a digital library. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 44(8), 1993, 480-491.

HEATH, L.S., HIX, D., NOWELL, L.T., WAKE, W.C., AVERBOCH, G.A., LABOW, E., GUYER, S.A, BRUNEI, D.J., FRANCE, R.K., DALAL, K., and FOX, E.A. Envision: a user-centered database of computer science literature. Communications of the ACM 38(4), 1995, 52-3.

NOWELL, L.T. and HIX, D. Visualizing search results: user interface development for the Project Envision database of computer science literature. In Human-Computer Interaction: Software and Hardware Interfaces, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, (HCI International'93), Orlando, Florida, August 8-13, 1993.

NOWELL, L.T., FRANCE R.K., HIX, D., HEATH, L.S. and FOX, E.A. Visualizing search results: some alternatives to query-document similarity. Presented at SIGIR '96, the Nineteenth Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, August 19-21, 1996, Zurich, Switerland.

Peter J. Wasilko, Ossining, New York, USA

Project Name
Continuity: An Intelligent Integrated Collaborative Catalog and Institutional Memory Archive
Principal Investigator
Peter J. Wasilko (futurist@cloud9.net)
Project Summary
"Current library catalogs don't reflect how people really work with information, making them very inefficient tools, particularly for users new to a discipline. They represent monolithic centralized efforts to structure access to the written record that are failing to adequately address the growth of that record or to tightly integrate newer forms of scholarly communication (e.g. the Web)."

"The OPAC of the future should have the following characteristics:

Demonstration or Prototype Access
http://www.cloud9.net/~futurist/continuity

http://www.cloud9.net/~futurist/continuity/dialog.html

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

BORGMAN, C. Why are online catalogs still hard to use. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47(7), 1996, 493-503.

HILDRETH, C.R. Beyond Boolean: designing the next generation of online catalogs. Library trends 35(4), 1987,647-667.

NORGARD, B.A., BERGER, M.G., BUCKLAND, M.K., and PLAUNT, C. The Online catalog: from technical services to access service. Advances in librarianship 17, 1993,111-148.

ZUMER, M. and ZENG, L. Comparison and evaluation of OPAC end-user interfaces. Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 19(2), 1994, 67-98.

Onion Patch(sm): New Age Public Access Systems is a clearinghouse devoted to projects, research, products and services that support or demonstrate alternative approaches to Second Generation OPACs and other current online public catalogs and indexes. Onion Patch(sm) also includes descriptions of novel visual interfaces that have features that potentially can enhance public access systems.

The clearinghouse is arranged by the name of the university, corporation, or other organization with which the principal investigator of a project is affiliated, or under the name of the principal investigator if there is no current institutional affiliation. Selected significant reports, papers, and articles are also provided for each profiled activity. A general bibliography of applicable works is also included.

Onion Patch(sm): New Age Public Access Systems is compiled and maintained by Gerry McKiernan, A.B., M.S., Coordinator, Science and Technology Section, Reference and Instructional Services Department, and Curator, CyberStacks(sm), Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 and Peter J. Wasilko, Esq., J.D., LL.M., founder of The Invisible College of the Future.

January 5, 1997

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/Onion.htm