Use of Subimages in Fish Species Identification: A Qualitative Study

Many scholarly tasks involve working with subdocuments, or contextualized fine-grain information, i.e., with information that is part of some larger unit. A digital library (DL) facil- itates management, access, retrieval, and use of collections of data and metadata through services. However, most DLs do not provide infrastructure or services to support working with subdocuments. Superimposed information (SI) refers to new information that is created to reference subdocu- ments in existing information resources. We combine this idea of SI with traditional DL services, to define and develop a DL with SI (SI-DL). We explored the use of subimages and evaluated the use of a prototype SI-DL (SuperIDR) in fish species identification, a scholarly task that involves work- ing with subimages. The contexts and strategies of working with subimages in SuperIDR suggest new and enhanced sup- port (SI-DL services) for scholarly tasks that involve working with subimages, including new ways of querying and search- ing for subimages and associated information. The main contribution of our work are the insights gained from these findings of use of subimages and of SuperIDR (a prototype SI-DL), which lead to recommendations for the design of digital libraries with superimposed information

Extending the 5S Framework of Digital Libraries to support Complex Objects, Superimposed Information, and Content-Based Image Retrieval Services

Advanced services in digital libraries (DLs) have been developed and widely used to address the required capabilities of an assortment of systems as DLs expand into diverse application domains. These systems may require support for images (e.g., Content-Based Image Retrieval), Complex (information) Objects, and use of content at fine grain (e.g., Superimposed Information). Due to the lack of consensus on precise theoretical definitions for those services, implementation efforts often involve ad hoc development, leading to duplication and interoperability problems. This article presents a methodology to address those problems by extending a precisely specified minimal digital library (in the 5S framework) with formal definitions of aforementioned services. The theoretical extensions of digital library functionality presented here are reinforced with practical case studies as well as scenarios for the individual and integrative use of services to balance theory and practice. This methodology has implications that other advanced services can be continuously integrated into our current extended framework whenever they are identified. The theoretical definitions and case study we present may impact future development efforts and a wide range of digital library researchers, designers, and developers

Learning in an age of digital networks

The final years of the twentieth century and early years of the twenty first century have been marked by the rapid rise of digital and networked technologies. Some have even called it a paradigm shift and suggested that it will lead to a dramatic change in the way young people learn (Tapscott and Williams, 2010). As with all commentary on new technologies we should beware of being carried away with the excitement of the new. There is a recurrent innovation cycle beginning with over excitement followed by disappointment and once the reaction has set in against the new it is followed by a move away to yet another new technology, often before a proper assessment and evaluation of the previous cycle can take place. Equally we must be careful not to ignore the profound changes that are taking place and how they may affect universities and learning in society more generally. A recent description by a UK based think tank Demos characterized the kind of university that is emerging from the engagement with new digital and networked technologies as the 'edgeless university' (Bradwell, 2009). The term edgeless is borrowed from work on the city that suggests edgeless cities have the function of cities without being organized in their classic form. In the same way the Demos pamphlet suggests that the university retains an identifiable function but the functions of the university are no longer confined to a single institution nor are they confined to higher education institutions more broadly. Over a decade ago Brown and Duguid (2000) identified the core functions of universities as the capacity to grant degrees, to accredit students and to provide the warrant that guaranteed the credentials obtained by the students from the university. They also suggested that the introduction of what were then new technologies would lead to an increased focus on these core functions. The core role remains in the edgeless university but the boundaries to these may alter. This article tries to provide a way of thinking about new technologies that manages to balance these two conflicting needs. It identifies some current ways of thinking about the changes taking place in universities that are related to digital and networked technologies and to assess their impact. It then goes on to suggest the kinds of choices we may have to make in relation to new technologies at a variety of levels, the personal, the institutional and in terms of society in general. The edgeless university is associated with broad technological change but whether such change is inevitable is still an issue that needs to be discussed

Reflexiones sobre las Humanidades Digitales

A partir de mi experiencia personal a lo largo de 30 años en edición digital de revistas y libros electrónicos; creación, preservación y gestión de bibliotecas y archivos digitales; investigación basada en ordenadores y aplicaciones informáticas para estudios literarios, lingüísticos, culturales e históricos; análisis de textos, corpus, marcación de corpus, bases de datos, etc., llego a la conclusión de que las Humanidades digitales han avanzado mediante el autoaprendizaje y también han sido posibles grandes proyectos a través del trabajo en equipo y la interdisciplinariedad, junto con el aprendizaje continuo. Lo que me lleva a reflexionar si debería haber estudios específicos en Humanidades digitales y, si así fuera, cuáles deberían ser. Hago un breve repaso a diferentes másteres existentes en la actualidad en EE.UU., Inglaterra y España, resaltando el alto contenido en TIC, y finalmente doy mi propuesta sobre las posibles alternativas futuras de las Humanidades digitales.From my personal experience over 30 years in publishing digital magazines and electronic books; in creation, preservation and management of digital libraries and archives; in research on computers and computer applications for literary, linguistic, cultural and historical studies; in textual analysis, corpus, databases, etc., I am able to conclude that the Digital Humanities have advanced through self-learning. Furthermore, major projects have been made through teamwork and interdisciplinarity, as well as through continuous learning. This leads me to wonder if there should be specific studies in Digital Humanities, and if so, which ones should they be. I give a brief overview of different Masters currently available in the U.S., England and Spain, stressing their high content in ICT. At last, I offer my proposal for possible future alternatives of Digital Humanities

D7.3 Training materials

This Deliverable gives a detailed description of the comprehensive training programme and of the open educational content that the University of Padua has accomplished up to now for the project "Linked Heritage: Coordination of standard and technologies for the enrichment of Europeana" (CIP Best Practice Network). The final version of D7.3 will be released by the end of the project, when all the Learning Objects will be finished

E-government, biblioteques públiques i inclusió social: debat sobre alguns d'aquests conceptes

L'objecte d'aquest escrit és l'aportació que les biblioteques públiques poden fer al desenvolupament dels serveis electrònics prestats pels governs estatals i locals, amb una especial referència a la dimensió de la inclusió social, perquè aquest és el punt fort d'aquestes institucions. Quan parlem d'aquesta àrea, tendim a centrar-nos en allò que ara en diem «la bretxa digital». Un dels temes que cal debatre és no sols en què consisteix, sinó també si és pertinent que abordem aquesta qüestió. El tema és important, perquè les biblioteques públiques han d'abordar les mateixes qüestions que altres sectors que desenvolupen les funcions relacionades amb els negocis electrònics en un context corporatiu. Aquestes qüestions inclouen la manera com els serveis es poden prestar a través de mitjans electrònics i com les biblioteques poden contribuir a la prestació de serveis de l'organització mare. | El objeto de este artículo es la aportación que las bibliotecas públicas pueden hacer al desarrollo de los servicios electrónicos prestados por los gobiernos estatales y locales, con una especial referencia a la dimensión de la inclusión social, porque éste es el punto fuerte de estas instituciones. Cuando hablamos de esta área, tendemos a centrarnos en lo que ahora llamamos «la brecha digital». Uno de los temas que hay que debatir no es sólo en qué consiste, sinó también si es pertinente que abordemos esta cuestión. El tema es importante, porque las bibliotecas públicas han de abordar las mismas cuestiones que otros sectores que desarrollan las funciones relacionadas con los negocios electrónicos en un contexto corporativo. Estas cuestiones incluyen la forma cómo los servicios se pueden prestar a través de medios electrónicos y cómo las bibliotecas pueden contribuir a la prestación de servicios de la organización madre. | The focus of this paper is the contribution public libraries can make to the development of e-government services provided by national and local government with particular reference to the social inclusion dimension, because that is a strength of public libraries. Discussion of this area tends to focus on what we now know to be the so-called «Digital Divide». One of the issues discussed is not only what that is, but whether it is a significant issue for us to address. The issue is important because as other sectors develop their e-business functions in a corporate context, public libraries also have to address the same issues. These issues include how services can be delivered electronically and how libraries can assist in the delivery of services of the parent organisation

Joint Workshop on Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing for Digital Libraries (BIRNDL 2017)

The large scale of scholarly publications poses a challenge for scholars in information seeking and sensemaking. Bibliometrics, information retrieval (IR), text mining and NLP techniques could help in these search and look-up activities, but are not yet widely used. This workshop is intended to stimulate IR researchers and digital library professionals to elaborate on new approaches in natural language processing, information retrieval, scientometrics, text mining and recommendation techniques that can advance the state-of-the-art in scholarly document understanding, analysis, and retrieval at scale. The BIRNDL workshop at SIGIR 2017 will incorporate an invited talk, paper sessions and the third edition of the Computational Linguistics (CL) Scientific Summarization Shared Task.Comment: 2 pages, workshop paper accepted at the SIGIR 201

User Attitudes on E-Books Collection in Mahatma Gandhi University Library: A Case Study

A study on the user’s attitudes, interest and understanding of e-book collections. The sample taken for the study is the E-book collection developed at the Mahatma Gandhi University Library and its users. The survey assessed the impact of the e-books on teaching learning and research. The problems associated with the use of e-books aware also identified. The inference of the study are that the user’s require an orientation on different types of collections, and also extended facilities for access which is possible in this format

Towards a Comparative Approach to Manuscript Study on the Web: the Case of the Lancelot-Grail Romance

This paper presents an outline of the on-going Lancelot-Grail Project, an interdisciplinary collaborative research project drawing together, analysing, and making available in text and picture the surviving manuscripts of the popular Arthurian romance known as the Lancelot-Grail. The project uses web technology as part of the analytical process and as a means to navigate within the material, presenting models based on the concepts of geographic information systems (GIS) in a non-traditional context

Mr. DLib: Recommendations-as-a-Service (RaaS) for Academia

Only few digital libraries and reference managers offer recommender systems, although such systems could assist users facing information overload. In this paper, we introduce Mr. DLib's recommendations-as-a-service, which allows third parties to easily integrate a recommender system into their products. We explain the recommender approaches implemented in Mr. DLib (content-based filtering among others), and present details on 57 million recommendations, which Mr. DLib delivered to its partner GESIS Sowiport. Finally, we outline our plans for future development, including integration into JabRef, establishing a living lab, and providing personalized recommendations.Comment: Accepted for publication at the JCDL conference 201