ALEXANDRIA DIGITAL LIBRARY

1 PROJECT SUMMARY

DATE PREPARED: 14 February, 1996.

ORGANIZATION: University of California at Santa Barbara.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:

Terence R. Smith
Department of Computer Science
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara
CA 93106.
smithtr@cs.ucsb.edu
805-893-2966
805-893-8553 (FAX)

Michael F. Goodchild
Department of Geography
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara
CA 93106.
good@geog.ucsb.edu
805-893-8049
805-893-8553 (FAX)

TITLE OF EFFORT:

ALEXANDRIA: A DIGITAL LIBRARY FOR GEOGRAPHICALLY-REFERENCED MATERIALS

ACCESS INFORMATION:

http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu

OBJECTIVE:

The goal of the Alexandria Project is to build a distributed digital library (DL) for geographically-referenced materials. A central function of ADL is to provide users with access to a large range of digital materials-ranging from maps and images to text to multimedia-in terms of geographical reference. An important type of query is ``What information is there in the library about some phenomenon at a particular set of places?''. From the Internet, both users and librarians can access various components of ADL, such as its catalog and collections, through powerful, graphical interfaces without having to know where these different components are located on the Internet.

APPROACH:

The main aspect of ADL's strategic approach involves:

1. a focus upon access to the many classes of collection items, including non-traditional items, by geographical reference;
2. the development of the user interface (UI) and catalog components of the DL architecture;
3. accessibility to the ADL catalog and collections via the Internet for a wide variety of users;
4. close interaction and interoperability with other DL activities by way of Internet-related technologies;
5. a process of incremental, evolutionary design and implementation of ADL that takes advantage of critical technological developments, and especially Internet-related technologies;
6. digitally-supportable extensions to traditional library functionality.

In particular, the transitions from our initial stand-alone rapid prototype (RP) in early 1995, to our first World Wide Web prototype (WP) in late 1995, to our publicly-available testbed in mid-1996, to our million-item operational library in mid-1997, are being made in incremental steps that build upon each other and upon a basic four-component architecture. This architecture involves: (1) user interface components that support graphic and text-based access to the other ADL components and services; (2) a distributed catalog component that metadata and search engines permitting users to identify holdings of interest; (3) a distributed storage component containing the digital holdings; and (4) an ingest component allowing librarians to store new holdings, extract metadata from the holdings, and add metadata to the catalog.

A variety of technologies being applied and developed in each of the four components. The graphical/geographical interface is supported by a variety of internet-related technologies, such as browsers and programmable browsers. Access to the holdings is by way of a catalog component that supports spatially-based metadata models and content-based search techniques. Currently, such techniques employ gazetteers for map documents and texture features for image documents. Browsing and the delivery of large items is supported by progressive delivery techniques based on wavelet technology. The high-performance servers that support the library operation are being based in part on approaches that involve parallel computing.

PROGRESS:

The research and development in our first cycle activity, lasting six months, yielded a stand-alone rapid prototype (RP) testbed library, which was based on commercial database management systems and geographic information system technology. The RP was distributed for evaluation by major users as a CD-ROM.

The research and development in our second cycle of activity, lasting six months, led to a ``Web prototype'' (WP) testbed library accessible from the World Wide Web (WWW), but with current accessibility limited to  a small number of major users and project partners.

This system involved the development of a complex WWW interface, a catalog for metadata, and the preliminary applications of  research results relating to image processing and parallel computing technologies.

The WP is proving to be an excellent model for the testbed libraries that we are currently developing, and for an operational library that we are now designing.  The main goal of the current cycle is to make the testbed accessible to anyone with a WWW connection by mid-1996. This involves developing major collections of DL documents and servers with appropriate power. A goal of the next cycle will be to construct an operational library of over a million items by mid-1997.

RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

• Distribution of CD-ROM of rapid prototype of ADL tested and evaluated by many data users/producers
  
• Design and implementation of a web prototype of ADL system accessible from WWW being tested by variety of agencies
  
• Design and construction of metadata schema for ADL based on FGDC/USMARC being used by several organizations
  
• Implementation of content-based retrieval in ADL access to digitized maps by named earth surface feature access to digitized images by named texture feature
• Implementation of progressive browsing and delivery of images
  
  

PLANS:

• A testbed accessible to anyone from the WWW, available by mid-1996 and providing access to significant collections.
• Design and construction of a new component of the ADL interface that is based on a multi-level ``Alexandria Atlas'' and that supports graphical/geographical access to many classes of documents by geographic reference.
  
• Design and implementation of advanced models of geographical access using complex and fuzzy geographic footprints.
  
• Development of a general model of metadata and a  catalog based on this model that integrates many forms of metadata.
• Development of significant collections of maps, images, and text with the aim of having a million-item, operational library by mid-1997.
  
• Interoperability with other DLs (UCB, Stanford, Illinois).
  
• Significant extensions of content-based search functionality based on gazetteers, and image texture, color, and multispectral images;
• Support for a high-performance library based parallel computing technology;
  

TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION, SHARING, AND PARTNERING:

We are developing our catalog and metadata component in close cooperation with a variety of partners, including CIESIN, Central Imagery Office, ERDAS, ESRI, Hughes, Library of Congress, NASA, USGS, and US Navy. We are sharing the metadata schema that we developed with various groups (e.g. CIESIN). We are making our testbed facilities available to various organizations facing a need to store their collections in publicly-accessible form (e.g. Sierra Nevada Ecology Project, Mojave Desert ecosystem Project). We are providing versions of our system for testing purposes in the applications of cooperating partners (e.g. USGS). We are interacting closely with three of the DLI projects in developing interoperable libraries, and sharing our expertise in spatially-indexed information.