Mining the information landscape

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Mining the information landscape

• Rosemary Russell, UKOLNAgora Communications
  Coordinator

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To cover

• what Agoras about
• information landscapes
• architecture
• prototype
• some issues

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Agora

• a place of assembly or market place
• libraries will continue to organise the places
  (physical or virtual) where users and information
  products are brought together

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Agora project is

• based on MODELS concepts
• developing a Hybrid Library Management System
  (HLMS) to integrate
• discovery
• location
• requesting
• delivery

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Agora framework

• a layer of services or middleware which will
  shield the user from complexity, heterogeneity
  and repetitive processes
• open standards - Z39.50, ISO ILL, HTTP...
• metadata

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Broker architecture
User access points (web browsers)
User access
Hybrid Library Management System
Applications framework Service description and
mapping
Distributed service access
Local library catalogue
Clump entry points
Network CDs
Electronic documents
ILL systems
Hybrid library system components
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Information landscapes

• a way of presenting different views of
  information resources to users, according to
  interests and needs
• simple - set of web links to resources
• sophisticated - matching
• user profiles
• collection/service descriptions
• access privileges

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Agora consortium members

• UEA
• UKOLN
• CERLIM
• Fretwell-Downing

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Agora associates

• libraries
• UEA
• Hull
• Heriot Watt
• Bath Spa
• Manchester Metropolitan
• systems developers
• service providers

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Progress to date

• prototype (available since Aug 98)
• evaluation
• requirements catalogue
• prioritisation
• developing communications environment

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The prototype

• social science resources
• heterogeneous targets
• abstracts indexes (CD-ROM)
• library catalogues
• archives (subsets)
• data archives
• subject gateways

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Some issues...

• hybrid datasets
• no common attributes
• no common data structures
• multi-level records (archives)
• implementors agreement needed?
• agreed subset of attribute mappings
• sorting and deduplication
• non-Z39.50 searchable resources
• collection description

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Mining the information landscape

• better exploitation of resources
• revealing hidden resources
• collection/service descriptions
• resource sharing
• a managed, integrated environment
• user-centred

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Further info

• Agora web pages lthttp//hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/agora/
  gt
• emailr.russell_at_ukoln.ac.uk