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Ever since the possibilities of computer-searching have emerged, scholars in the field of late ancient and early medieval studies (philosophers, theologians, classicists, and those studying the history of natural law and the history of the legal development of Western civilization) have been longing for a fully searchable version of Western literature, for example, all the texts of Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux and Boethius, not to mention all the secondary and tertiary authors.
Various questions arose, CALALUCA said. Should one convert Migne? Should the database be encoded? Is it necessary to do that? How should it be delivered? What about CD-ROM? Since this is a transitional medium, why even bother to create software to run on a CD-ROM? Since everybody knows people will be networking information, why go to the trouble—which is far greater with CD-ROM than with the production of magnetic data? Finally, how does one make the data available? Can many of the hurdles to using electronic information that some publishers have imposed upon databases be eliminated?
The PLD project was based on the principle that computer-searching of texts is most effective when it is done with a large database. Because PLD represented a collection that serves so many disciplines across so many periods, it was irresistible.
The basic rule in converting PLD was to do no harm, to avoid the sins of intrusion in such a database: no introduction of newer editions, no on-the-spot changes, no eradicating of all possible falsehoods from an edition. Thus, PLD is not the final act in electronic publishing for this discipline, but simply the beginning. The conversion of PLD has evoked numerous unanticipated questions: How will information be used? What about networking? Can the rights of a database be protected? Should one protect the rights of a database? How can it be made available?
Those converting PLD also tried to avoid the sins of omission, that is, excluding portions of the collections or whole sections. What about the images? PLD is full of images, some are extremely pious nineteenth-century representations of the Fathers, while others contain highly interesting elements. The goal was to cover all the text of Migne (including notes, in Greek and in Hebrew, the latter of which, in particular, causes problems in creating a search structure), all the indices, and even the images, which are being scanned in separately searchable files.
Several North American institutions that have placed acquisition requests for the PLD database have requested it in magnetic form without software, which means they are already running it without software, without anything demonstrated at the Workshop.
What cannot practically be done is go back and reconvert and re-encode data, a time-consuming and extremely costly enterprise. CALALUCA sees PLD as a database that can, and should, be run under a variety of retrieval softwares. This will permit the widest possible searches. Consequently, the need to produce a CD-ROM of PLD, as well as to develop software that could handle some 1.3 gigabyte of heavily encoded text, developed out of conversations with collection development and reference librarians who wanted software both compassionate enough for the pedestrian but also capable of incorporating the most detailed lexicographical studies that a user desires to conduct. In the end, the encoding and conversion of the data will prove the most enduring testament to the value of the project.
The encoding of the database was also a hard-fought issue: Did the database need to be encoded? Were there normative structures for encoding humanist texts? Should it be SGML? What about the TEI—will it last, will it prove useful? CALALUCA expressed some minor doubts as to whether a data bank can be fully TEI-conformant. Every effort can be made, but in the end to be TEI-conformant means to accept the need to make some firm encoding decisions that can, indeed, be disputed. The TEI points the publisher in a proper direction but does not presume to make all the decisions for him or her. Essentially, the goal of encoding was to eliminate, as much as possible, the hindrances to information-networking, so that if an institution acquires a database, everybody associated with the institution can have access to it.
CALALUCA demonstrated a portion of Volume 160, because it had the most anomalies in it. The software was created by Electronic Book Technologies of Providence, RI, and is called Dynatext. The software works only with SGML-coded data.
Viewing a table of contents on the screen, the audience saw how Dynatext treats each element as a book and attempts to simplify movement through a volume. Familiarity with the Patrologia in print (i.e., the text, its source, and the editions) will make the machine-readable versions highly useful. (Software with a Windows application was sought for PLD, CALALUCA said, because this was the main trend for scholarly use.)
CALALUCA also demonstrated how a user can perform a variety of searches and quickly move to any part of a volume; the look-up screen provides some basic, simple word-searching.
CALALUCA argued that one of the major difficulties is not the software. Rather, in creating a product that will be used by scholars representing a broad spectrum of computer sophistication, user documentation proves to be the most important service one can provide.
CALALUCA next illustrated a truncated search under mysterium within ten words of virtus and how one would be able to find its contents throughout the entire database. He said that the exciting thing about PLD is that many of the applications in the retrieval software being written for it will exceed the capabilities of the software employed now for the CD-ROM version. The CD-ROM faces genuine limitations, in terms of speed and comprehensiveness, in the creation of a retrieval software to run it. CALALUCA said he hoped that individual scholars will download the data, if they wish, to their personal computers, and have ready access to important texts on a constant basis, which they will be able to use in their research and from which they might even be able to publish.
(CALALUCA explained that the blue numbers represented Migne's column numbers, which are the standard scholarly references. Pulling up a note, he stated that these texts were heavily edited and the image files would appear simply as a note as well, so that one could quickly access an image.)
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+++++++++++++ FLEISCHHAUER/ERWAY * Several problems with which AM is still wrestling * Various search and retrieval capabilities * Illustration of automatic stemming and a truncated search * AM's attempt to find ways to connect cataloging to the texts * AM's gravitation towards SGML * Striking a balance between quantity and quality * How AM furnishes users recourse to images * Conducting a search in a full-text environment * Macintosh and IBM prototypes of AM * Multimedia aspects of AM * +++++++++++++
A demonstration of American Memory by its coordinator, Carl FLEISCHHAUER, and Ricky ERWAY, associate coordinator, Library of Congress, concluded the morning session. Beginning with a collection of broadsides from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, the only text collection in a presentable form at the time of the Workshop, FLEISCHHAUER highlighted several of the problems with which AM is still wrestling. (In its final form, the disk will contain two collections, not only the broadsides but also the full text with illustrations of a set of approximately 300 African-American pamphlets from the period 1870 to 1910.)
As FREEMAN had explained earlier, AM has attempted to use a small amount of interpretation to introduce collections. In the present case, the contractor, a company named Quick Source, in Silver Spring, MD., used software called Toolbook and put together a modestly interactive introduction to the collection. Like the two preceding speakers, FLEISCHHAUER argued that the real asset was the underlying collection.
FLEISCHHAUER proceeded to describe various search and retrieval capabilities while ERWAY worked the computer. In this particular package the "go to" pull-down allowed the user in effect to jump out of Toolbook, where the interactive program was located, and enter the third-party software used by AM for this text collection, which is called Personal Librarian. This was the Windows version of Personal Librarian, a software application put together by a company in Rockville, Md.
Since the broadsides came from the Revolutionary War period, a search was conducted using the words British or war, with the default operator reset as or. FLEISCHHAUER demonstrated both automatic stemming (which finds other forms of the same root) and a truncated search. One of Personal Librarian's strongest features, the relevance ranking, was represented by a chart that indicated how often words being sought appeared in documents, with the one receiving the most "hits" obtaining the highest score. The "hit list" that is supplied takes the relevance ranking into account, making the first hit, in effect, the one the software has selected as the most relevant example.
While in the text of one of the broadside documents, FLEISCHHAUER remarked AM's attempt to find ways to connect cataloging to the texts, which it does in different ways in different manifestations. In the case shown, the cataloging was pasted on: AM took MARC records that were written as on-line records right into one of the Library's mainframe retrieval programs, pulled them out, and handed them off to the contractor, who massaged them somewhat to display them in the manner shown. One of AM's questions is, Does the cataloguing normally performed in the mainframe work in this context, or had AM ought to think through adjustments?
FLEISCHHAUER made the additional point that, as far as the text goes, AM has gravitated towards SGML (he pointed to the boldface in the upper part of the screen). Although extremely limited in its ability to translate or interpret SGML, Personal Librarian will furnish both bold and italics on screen; a fairly easy thing to do, but it is one of the ways in which SGML is useful.
Striking a balance between quantity and quality has been a major concern of AM, with accuracy being one of the places where project staff have felt that less than 100-percent accuracy was not unacceptable. FLEISCHHAUER cited the example of the standard of the rekeying industry, namely 99.95 percent; as one service bureau informed him, to go from 99.95 to 100 percent would double the cost.
FLEISCHHAUER next demonstrated how AM furnishes users recourse to images, and at the same time recalled LESK's pointed question concerning the number of people who would look at those images and the number who would work only with the text. If the implication of LESK's question was sound, FLEISCHHAUER said, it raised the stakes for text accuracy and reduced the value of the strategy for images.
Contending that preservation is always a bugaboo, FLEISCHHAUER demonstrated several images derived from a scan of a preservation microfilm that AM had made. He awarded a grade of C at best, perhaps a C minus or a C plus, for how well it worked out. Indeed, the matter of learning if other people had better ideas about scanning in general, and, in particular, scanning from microfilm, was one of the factors that drove AM to attempt to think through the agenda for the Workshop. Skew, for example, was one of the issues that AM in its ignorance had not reckoned would prove so difficult.
Further, the handling of images of the sort shown, in a desktop computer environment, involved a considerable amount of zooming and scrolling. Ultimately, AM staff feel that perhaps the paper copy that is printed out might be the most useful one, but they remain uncertain as to how much on-screen reading users will do.
Returning to the text, FLEISCHHAUER asked viewers to imagine a person who might be conducting a search in a full-text environment. With this scenario, he proceeded to illustrate other features of Personal Librarian that he considered helpful; for example, it provides the ability to notice words as one reads. Clicking the "include" button on the bottom of the search window pops the words that have been highlighted into the search. Thus, a user can refine the search as he or she reads, re-executing the search and continuing to find things in the quest for materials. This software not only contains relevance ranking, Boolean operators, and truncation, it also permits one to perform word algebra, so to say, where one puts two or three words in parentheses and links them with one Boolean operator and then a couple of words in another set of parentheses and asks for things within so many words of others.
Until they became acquainted recently with some of the work being done in classics, the AM staff had not realized that a large number of the projects that involve electronic texts were being done by people with a profound interest in language and linguistics. Their search strategies and thinking are oriented to those fields, as is shown in particular by the Perseus example. As amateur historians, the AM staff were thinking more of searching for concepts and ideas than for particular words. Obviously, FLEISCHHAUER conceded, searching for concepts and ideas and searching for words may be two rather closely related things.
While displaying several images, FLEISCHHAUER observed that the Macintosh prototype built by AM contains a greater diversity of formats. Echoing a previous speaker, he said that it was easier to stitch things together in the Macintosh, though it tended to be a little more anemic in search and retrieval. AM, therefore, increasingly has been investigating sophisticated retrieval engines in the IBM format.
FLEISCHHAUER demonstrated several additional examples of the prototype interfaces: One was AM's metaphor for the network future, in which a kind of reading-room graphic suggests how one would be able to go around to different materials. AM contains a large number of photographs in analog video form worked up from a videodisc, which enable users to make copies to print or incorporate in digital documents. A frame-grabber is built into the system, making it possible to bring an image into a window and digitize or print it out.
FLEISCHHAUER next demonstrated sound recording, which included texts. Recycled from a previous project, the collection included sixty 78-rpm phonograph records of political speeches that were made during and immediately after World War I. These constituted approximately three hours of audio, as AM has digitized it, which occupy 150 megabytes on a CD. Thus, they are considerably compressed. From the catalogue card, FLEISCHHAUER proceeded to a transcript of a speech with the audio available and with highlighted text following it as it played. A photograph has been added and a transcription made.
Considerable value has been added beyond what the Library of Congress normally would do in cataloguing a sound recording, which raises several questions for AM concerning where to draw lines about how much value it can afford to add and at what point, perhaps, this becomes more than AM could reasonably do or reasonably wish to do. FLEISCHHAUER also demonstrated a motion picture. As FREEMAN had reported earlier, the motion picture materials have proved the most popular, not surprisingly. This says more about the medium, he thought, than about AM's presentation of it.
Because AM's goal was to bring together things that could be used by historians or by people who were curious about history, turn-of-the-century footage seemed to represent the most appropriate collections from the Library of Congress in motion pictures. These were the very first films made by Thomas Edison's company and some others at that time. The particular example illustrated was a Biograph film, brought in with a frame-grabber into a window. A single videodisc contains about fifty titles and pieces of film from that period, all of New York City. Taken together, AM believes, they provide an interesting documentary resource.
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Using the frame-grabber in AM * Volume of material processed and to be processed * Purpose of AM within LC * Cataloguing and the nature of AM's material * SGML coding and the question of quality versus quantity * +++++++++++++
During the question-and-answer period that followed FLEISCHHAUER's presentation, several clarifications were made.
AM is bringing in motion pictures from a videodisc. The frame-grabber devices create a window on a computer screen, which permits users to digitize a single frame of the movie or one of the photographs. It produces a crude, rough-and-ready image that high school students can incorporate into papers, and that has worked very nicely in this way.
Commenting on FLEISCHHAUER's assertion that AM was looking more at searching ideas than words, MYLONAS argued that without words an idea does not exist. FLEISCHHAUER conceded that he ought to have articulated his point more clearly. MYLONAS stated that they were in fact both talking about the same thing. By searching for words and by forcing people to focus on the word, the Perseus Project felt that they would get them to the idea. The way one reviews results is tailored more to one kind of user than another.
Concerning the total volume of material that has been processed in this way, AM at this point has in retrievable form seven or eight collections, all of them photographic. In the Macintosh environment, for example, there probably are 35,000-40,000 photographs. The sound recordings number sixty items. The broadsides number about 300 items. There are 500 political cartoons in the form of drawings. The motion pictures, as individual items, number sixty to seventy.
AM also has a manuscript collection, the life history portion of one of the federal project series, which will contain 2,900 individual documents, all first-person narratives. AM has in process about 350 African-American pamphlets, or about 12,000 printed pages for the period 1870-1910. Also in the works are some 4,000 panoramic photographs. AM has recycled a fair amount of the work done by LC's Prints and Photographs Division during the Library's optical disk pilot project in the 1980s. For example, a special division of LC has tooled up and thought through all the ramifications of electronic presentation of photographs. Indeed, they are wheeling them out in great barrel loads. The purpose of AM within the Library, it is hoped, is to catalyze several of the other special collection divisions which have no particular experience with, in some cases, mixed feelings about, an activity such as AM. Moreover, in many cases the divisions may be characterized as not only lacking experience in "electronifying" things but also in automated cataloguing. MARC cataloguing as practiced in the United States is heavily weighted toward the description of monograph and serial materials, but is much thinner when one enters the world of manuscripts and things that are held in the Library's music collection and other units. In response to a comment by LESK, that AM's material is very heavily photographic, and is so primarily because individual records have been made for each photograph, FLEISCHHAUER observed that an item-level catalog record exists, for example, for each photograph in the Detroit Publishing collection of 25,000 pictures. In the case of the Federal Writers Project, for which nearly 3,000 documents exist, representing information from twenty-six different states, AM with the assistance of Karen STUART of the Manuscript Division will attempt to find some way not only to have a collection-level record but perhaps a MARC record for each state, which will then serve as an umbrella for the 100-200 documents that come under it. But that drama remains to be enacted. The AM staff is conservative and clings to cataloguing, though of course visitors tout artificial intelligence and neural networks in a manner that suggests that perhaps one need not have cataloguing or that much of it could be put aside.
The matter of SGML coding, FLEISCHHAUER conceded, returned the discussion to the earlier treated question of quality versus quantity in the Library of Congress. Of course, text conversion can be done with 100-percent accuracy, but it means that when one's holdings are as vast as LC's only a tiny amount will be exposed, whereas permitting lower levels of accuracy can lead to exposing or sharing larger amounts, but with the quality correspondingly impaired.
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+++++++++++++ TWOHIG * A contrary experience concerning electronic options * Volume of material in the Washington papers and a suggestion of David Packard * Implications of Packard's suggestion * Transcribing the documents for the CD-ROM * Accuracy of transcriptions * The CD-ROM edition of the Founding Fathers documents * +++++++++++++
Finding encouragement in a comment of MICHELSON's from the morning session—that numerous people in the humanities were choosing electronic options to do their work—Dorothy TWOHIG, editor, The Papers of George Washington, opened her illustrated talk by noting that her experience with literary scholars and numerous people in editing was contrary to MICHELSON's. TWOHIG emphasized literary scholars' complete ignorance of the technological options available to them or their reluctance or, in some cases, their downright hostility toward these options.
After providing an overview of the five Founding Fathers projects (Jefferson at Princeton, Franklin at Yale, John Adams at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and Madison down the hall from her at the University of Virginia), TWOHIG observed that the Washington papers, like all of the projects, include both sides of the Washington correspondence and deal with some 135,000 documents to be published with extensive annotation in eighty to eighty-five volumes, a project that will not be completed until well into the next century. Thus, it was with considerable enthusiasm several years ago that the Washington Papers Project (WPP) greeted David Packard's suggestion that the papers of the Founding Fathers could be published easily and inexpensively, and to the great benefit of American scholarship, via CD-ROM.
In pragmatic terms, funding from the Packard Foundation would expedite the transcription of thousands of documents waiting to be put on disk in the WPP offices. Further, since the costs of collecting, editing, and converting the Founding Fathers documents into letterpress editions were running into the millions of dollars, and the considerable staffs involved in all of these projects were devoting their careers to producing the work, the Packard Foundation's suggestion had a revolutionary aspect: Transcriptions of the entire corpus of the Founding Fathers papers would be available on CD-ROM to public and college libraries, even high schools, at a fraction of the cost— $100-$150 for the annual license fee—to produce a limited university press run of 1,000 of each volume of the published papers at $45-$150 per printed volume. Given the current budget crunch in educational systems and the corresponding constraints on librarians in smaller institutions who wish to add these volumes to their collections, producing the documents on CD-ROM would likely open a greatly expanded audience for the papers. TWOHIG stressed, however, that development of the Founding Fathers CD-ROM is still in its infancy. Serious software problems remain to be resolved before the material can be put into readable form.
Funding from the Packard Foundation resulted in a major push to transcribe the 75,000 or so documents of the Washington papers remaining to be transcribed onto computer disks. Slides illustrated several of the problems encountered, for example, the present inability of CD-ROM to indicate the cross-outs (deleted material) in eighteenth century documents. TWOHIG next described documents from various periods in the eighteenth century that have been transcribed in chronological order and delivered to the Packard offices in California, where they are converted to the CD-ROM, a process that is expected to consume five years to complete (that is, reckoning from David Packard's suggestion made several years ago, until about July 1994). TWOHIG found an encouraging indication of the project's benefits in the ongoing use made by scholars of the search functions of the CD-ROM, particularly in reducing the time spent in manually turning the pages of the Washington papers.
TWOHIG next furnished details concerning the accuracy of transcriptions. For instance, the insertion of thousands of documents on the CD-ROM currently does not permit each document to be verified against the original manuscript several times as in the case of documents that appear in the published edition. However, the transcriptions receive a cursory check for obvious typos, the misspellings of proper names, and other errors from the WPP CD-ROM editor. Eventually, all documents that appear in the electronic version will be checked by project editors. Although this process has met with opposition from some of the editors on the grounds that imperfect work may leave their offices, the advantages in making this material available as a research tool outweigh fears about the misspelling of proper names and other relatively minor editorial matters.
Completion of all five Founding Fathers projects (i.e., retrievability and searchability of all of the documents by proper names, alternate spellings, or varieties of subjects) will provide one of the richest sources of this size for the history of the United States in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Further, publication on CD-ROM will allow editors to include even minutiae, such as laundry lists, not included in the printed volumes.
It seems possible that the extensive annotation provided in the printed volumes eventually will be added to the CD-ROM edition, pending negotiations with the publishers of the papers. At the moment, the Founding Fathers CD-ROM is accessible only on the IBYCUS, a computer developed out of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae project and designed for the use of classical scholars. There are perhaps 400 IBYCUS computers in the country, most of which are in university classics departments. Ultimately, it is anticipated that the CD-ROM edition of the Founding Fathers documents will run on any IBM-compatible or Macintosh computer with a CD-ROM drive. Numerous changes in the software will also occur before the project is completed. (Editor's note: an IBYCUS was unavailable to demonstrate the CD-ROM.)
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Several additional features of WPP clarified * +++++++++++++
Discussion following TWOHIG's presentation served to clarify several additional features, including (1) that the project's primary intellectual product consists in the electronic transcription of the material; (2) that the text transmitted to the CD-ROM people is not marked up; (3) that cataloging and subject-indexing of the material remain to be worked out (though at this point material can be retrieved by name); and (4) that because all the searching is done in the hardware, the IBYCUS is designed to read a CD-ROM which contains only sequential text files. Technically, it then becomes very easy to read the material off and put it on another device.
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+++++++++++++ LEBRON * Overview of the history of the joint project between AAAS and OCLC * Several practices the on-line environment shares with traditional publishing on hard copy * Several technical and behavioral barriers to electronic publishing * How AAAS and OCLC arrived at the subject of clinical trials * Advantages of the electronic format and other features of OJCCT * An illustrated tour of the journal * +++++++++++++
Maria LEBRON, managing editor, The Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials (OJCCT), presented an illustrated overview of the history of the joint project between the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC). The joint venture between AAAS and OCLC owes its beginning to a reorganization launched by the new chief executive officer at OCLC about three years ago and combines the strengths of these two disparate organizations. In short, OJCCT represents the process of scholarly publishing on line.
LEBRON next discussed several practices the on-line environment shares with traditional publishing on hard copy—for example, peer review of manuscripts—that are highly important in the academic world. LEBRON noted in particular the implications of citation counts for tenure committees and grants committees. In the traditional hard-copy environment, citation counts are readily demonstrable, whereas the on-line environment represents an ethereal medium to most academics.
LEBRON remarked several technical and behavioral barriers to electronic publishing, for instance, the problems in transmission created by special characters or by complex graphics and halftones. In addition, she noted economic limitations such as the storage costs of maintaining back issues and market or audience education.
Manuscripts cannot be uploaded to OJCCT, LEBRON explained, because it is not a bulletin board or E-mail, forms of electronic transmission of information that have created an ambience clouding people's understanding of what the journal is attempting to do. OJCCT, which publishes peer-reviewed medical articles dealing with the subject of clinical trials, includes text, tabular material, and graphics, although at this time it can transmit only line illustrations.
Next, LEBRON described how AAAS and OCLC arrived at the subject of clinical trials: It is 1) a highly statistical discipline that 2) does not require halftones but can satisfy the needs of its audience with line illustrations and graphic material, and 3) there is a need for the speedy dissemination of high-quality research results. Clinical trials are research activities that involve the administration of a test treatment to some experimental unit in order to test its usefulness before it is made available to the general population. LEBRON proceeded to give additional information on OJCCT concerning its editor-in-chief, editorial board, editorial content, and the types of articles it publishes (including peer-reviewed research reports and reviews), as well as features shared by other traditional hard-copy journals.
Among the advantages of the electronic format are faster dissemination of information, including raw data, and the absence of space constraints because pages do not exist. (This latter fact creates an interesting situation when it comes to citations.) Nor are there any issues. AAAS's capacity to download materials directly from the journal to a subscriber's printer, hard drive, or floppy disk helps ensure highly accurate transcription. Other features of OJCCT include on-screen alerts that allow linkage of subsequently published documents to the original documents; on-line searching by subject, author, title, etc.; indexing of every single word that appears in an article; viewing access to an article by component (abstract, full text, or graphs); numbered paragraphs to replace page counts; publication in Science every thirty days of indexing of all articles published in the journal; typeset-quality screens; and Hypertext links that enable subscribers to bring up Medline abstracts directly without leaving the journal.
After detailing the two primary ways to gain access to the journal, through the OCLC network and Compuserv if one desires graphics or through the Internet if just an ASCII file is desired, LEBRON illustrated the speedy editorial process and the coding of the document using SGML tags after it has been accepted for publication. She also gave an illustrated tour of the journal, its search-and-retrieval capabilities in particular, but also including problems associated with scanning in illustrations, and the importance of on-screen alerts to the medical profession re retractions or corrections, or more frequently, editorials, letters to the editors, or follow-up reports. She closed by inviting the audience to join AAAS on 1 July, when OJCCT was scheduled to go on-line.
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Additional features of OJCCT * +++++++++++++
In the lengthy discussion that followed LEBRON's presentation, these points emerged:
* The SGML text can be tailored as users wish.
* All these articles have a fairly simple document definition.
* Document-type definitions (DTDs) were developed and given to OJCCT for coding.
* No articles will be removed from the journal. (Because there are no back issues, there are no lost issues either. Once a subscriber logs onto the journal he or she has access not only to the currently published materials, but retrospectively to everything that has been published in it. Thus the table of contents grows bigger. The date of publication serves to distinguish between currently published materials and older materials.)
* The pricing system for the journal resembles that for most medical journals: for 1992, $95 for a year, plus telecommunications charges (there are no connect time charges); for 1993, $110 for the entire year for single users, though the journal can be put on a local area network (LAN). However, only one person can access the journal at a time. Site licenses may come in the future.
* AAAS is working closely with colleagues at OCLC to display mathematical equations on screen.
* Without compromising any steps in the editorial process, the technology has reduced the time lag between when a manuscript is originally submitted and the time it is accepted; the review process does not differ greatly from the standard six-to-eight weeks employed by many of the hard-copy journals. The process still depends on people.
* As far as a preservation copy is concerned, articles will be maintained on the computer permanently and subscribers, as part of their subscription, will receive a microfiche-quality archival copy of everything published during that year; in addition, reprints can be purchased in much the same way as in a hard-copy environment. Hard copies are prepared but are not the primary medium for the dissemination of the information.
* Because OJCCT is not yet on line, it is difficult to know how many people would simply browse through the journal on the screen as opposed to downloading the whole thing and printing it out; a mix of both types of users likely will result.
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+++++++++++++ PERSONIUS * Developments in technology over the past decade * The CLASS Project * Advantages for technology and for the CLASS Project * Developing a network application an underlying assumption of the project * Details of the scanning process * Print-on-demand copies of books * Future plans include development of a browsing tool * +++++++++++++
Lynne PERSONIUS, assistant director, Cornell Information Technologies for Scholarly Information Services, Cornell University, first commented on the tremendous impact that developments in technology over the past ten years—networking, in particular—have had on the way information is handled, and how, in her own case, these developments have counterbalanced Cornell's relative geographical isolation. Other significant technologies include scanners, which are much more sophisticated than they were ten years ago; mass storage and the dramatic savings that result from it in terms of both space and money relative to twenty or thirty years ago; new and improved printing technologies, which have greatly affected the distribution of information; and, of course, digital technologies, whose applicability to library preservation remains at issue.
Given that context, PERSONIUS described the College Library Access and Storage System (CLASS) Project, a library preservation project, primarily, and what has been accomplished. Directly funded by the Commission on Preservation and Access and by the Xerox Corporation, which has provided a significant amount of hardware, the CLASS Project has been working with a development team at Xerox to develop a software application tailored to library preservation requirements. Within Cornell, participants in the project have been working jointly with both library and information technologies. The focus of the project has been on reformatting and saving books that are in brittle condition. PERSONIUS showed Workshop participants a brittle book, and described how such books were the result of developments in papermaking around the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The papermaking process was changed so that a significant amount of acid was introduced into the actual paper itself, which deteriorates as it sits on library shelves.
One of the advantages for technology and for the CLASS Project is that the information in brittle books is mostly out of copyright and thus offers an opportunity to work with material that requires library preservation, and to create and work on an infrastructure to save the material. Acknowledging the familiarity of those working in preservation with this information, PERSONIUS noted that several things are being done: the primary preservation technology used today is photocopying of brittle material. Saving the intellectual content of the material is the main goal. With microfilm copy, the intellectual content is preserved on the assumption that in the future the image can be reformatted in any other way that then exists.
An underlying assumption of the CLASS Project from the beginning was that it would develop a network application. Project staff scan books at a workstation located in the library, near the brittle material. An image-server filing system is located at a distance from that workstation, and a printer is located in another building. All of the materials digitized and stored on the image-filing system are cataloged in the on-line catalogue. In fact, a record for each of these electronic books is stored in the RLIN database so that a record exists of what is in the digital library throughout standard catalogue procedures. In the future, researchers working from their own workstations in their offices, or their networks, will have access—wherever they might be—through a request server being built into the new digital library. A second assumption is that the preferred means of finding the material will be by looking through a catalogue. PERSONIUS described the scanning process, which uses a prototype scanner being developed by Xerox and which scans a very high resolution image at great speed. Another significant feature, because this is a preservation application, is the placing of the pages that fall apart one for one on the platen. Ordinarily, a scanner could be used with some sort of a document feeder, but because of this application that is not feasible. Further, because CLASS is a preservation application, after the paper replacement is made there, a very careful quality control check is performed. An original book is compared to the printed copy and verification is made, before proceeding, that all of the image, all of the information, has been captured. Then, a new library book is produced: The printed images are rebound by a commercial binder and a new book is returned to the shelf. Significantly, the books returned to the library shelves are beautiful and useful replacements on acid-free paper that should last a long time, in effect, the equivalent of preservation photocopies. Thus, the project has a library of digital books. In essence, CLASS is scanning and storing books as 600 dot-per-inch bit-mapped images, compressed using Group 4 CCITT (i.e., the French acronym for International Consultative Committee for Telegraph and Telephone) compression. They are stored as TIFF files on an optical filing system that is composed of a database used for searching and locating the books and an optical jukebox that stores 64 twelve-inch platters. A very-high-resolution printed copy of these books at 600 dots per inch is created, using a Xerox DocuTech printer to make the paper replacements on acid-free paper.
PERSONIUS maintained that the CLASS Project presents an opportunity to introduce people to books as digital images by using a paper medium. Books are returned to the shelves while people are also given the ability to print on demand—to make their own copies of books. (PERSONIUS distributed copies of an engineering journal published by engineering students at Cornell around 1900 as an example of what a print-on-demand copy of material might be like. This very cheap copy would be available to people to use for their own research purposes and would bridge the gap between an electronic work and the paper that readers like to have.) PERSONIUS then attempted to illustrate a very early prototype of networked access to this digital library. Xerox Corporation has developed a prototype of a view station that can send images across the network to be viewed.
The particular library brought down for demonstration contained two mathematics books. CLASS is developing and will spend the next year developing an application that allows people at workstations to browse the books. Thus, CLASS is developing a browsing tool, on the assumption that users do not want to read an entire book from a workstation, but would prefer to be able to look through and decide if they would like to have a printed copy of it.
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Re retrieval software * "Digital file copyright" * Scanning rate during production * Autosegmentation * Criteria employed in selecting books for scanning * Compression and decompression of images * OCR not precluded * +++++++++++++
During the question-and-answer period that followed her presentation, PERSONIUS made these additional points:
* Re retrieval software, Cornell is developing a Unix-based server as well as clients for the server that support multiple platforms (Macintosh, IBM and Sun workstations), in the hope that people from any of those platforms will retrieve books; a further operating assumption is that standard interfaces will be used as much as possible, where standards can be put in place, because CLASS considers this retrieval software a library application and would like to be able to look at material not only at Cornell but at other institutions.
* The phrase "digital file copyright by Cornell University" was added at the advice of Cornell's legal staff with the caveat that it probably would not hold up in court. Cornell does not want people to copy its books and sell them but would like to keep them available for use in a library environment for library purposes.
* In production the scanner can scan about 300 pages per hour, capturing 600 dots per inch.
* The Xerox software has filters to scan halftone material and avoid the moire patterns that occur when halftone material is scanned. Xerox has been working on hardware and software that would enable the scanner itself to recognize this situation and deal with it appropriately—a kind of autosegmentation that would enable the scanner to handle halftone material as well as text on a single page.
* The books subjected to the elaborate process described above were selected because CLASS is a preservation project, with the first 500 books selected coming from Cornell's mathematics collection, because they were still being heavily used and because, although they were in need of preservation, the mathematics library and the mathematics faculty were uncomfortable having them microfilmed. (They wanted a printed copy.) Thus, these books became a logical choice for this project. Other books were chosen by the project's selection committees for experiments with the technology, as well as to meet a demand or need.
* Images will be decompressed before they are sent over the line; at this time they are compressed and sent to the image filing system and then sent to the printer as compressed images; they are returned to the workstation as compressed 600-dpi images and the workstation decompresses and scales them for display—an inefficient way to access the material though it works quite well for printing and other purposes.
* CLASS is also decompressing on Macintosh and IBM, a slow process right now. Eventually, compression and decompression will take place on an image conversion server. Trade-offs will be made, based on future performance testing, concerning where the file is compressed and what resolution image is sent.
* OCR has not been precluded; images are being stored that have been scanned at a high resolution, which presumably would suit them well to an OCR process. Because the material being scanned is about 100 years old and was printed with less-than-ideal technologies, very early and preliminary tests have not produced good results. But the project is capturing an image that is of sufficient resolution to be subjected to OCR in the future. Moreover, the system architecture and the system plan have a logical place to store an OCR image if it has been captured. But that is not being done now.
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SESSION III. DISTRIBUTION, NETWORKS, AND NETWORKING: OPTIONS FOR DISSEMINATION
+++++++++++++ ZICH * Issues pertaining to CD-ROMs * Options for publishing in CD-ROM * +++++++++++++
Robert ZICH, special assistant to the associate librarian for special projects, Library of Congress, and moderator of this session, first noted the blessed but somewhat awkward circumstance of having four very distinguished people representing networks and networking or at least leaning in that direction, while lacking anyone to speak from the strongest possible background in CD-ROMs. ZICH expressed the hope that members of the audience would join the discussion. He stressed the subtitle of this particular session, "Options for Dissemination," and, concerning CD-ROMs, the importance of determining when it would be wise to consider dissemination in CD-ROM versus networks. A shopping list of issues pertaining to CD-ROMs included: the grounds for selecting commercial publishers, and in-house publication where possible versus nonprofit or government publication. A similar list for networks included: determining when one should consider dissemination through a network, identifying the mechanisms or entities that exist to place items on networks, identifying the pool of existing networks, determining how a producer would choose between networks, and identifying the elements of a business arrangement in a network.
Options for publishing in CD-ROM: an outside publisher versus self-publication. If an outside publisher is used, it can be nonprofit, such as the Government Printing Office (GPO) or the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), in the case of government. The pros and cons associated with employing an outside publisher are obvious. Among the pros, there is no trouble getting accepted. One pays the bill and, in effect, goes one's way. Among the cons, when one pays an outside publisher to perform the work, that publisher will perform the work it is obliged to do, but perhaps without the production expertise and skill in marketing and dissemination that some would seek. There is the body of commercial publishers that do possess that kind of expertise in distribution and marketing but that obviously are selective. In self-publication, one exercises full control, but then one must handle matters such as distribution and marketing. Such are some of the options for publishing in the case of CD-ROM.
In the case of technical and design issues, which are also important, there are many matters which many at the Workshop already knew a good deal about: retrieval system requirements and costs, what to do about images, the various capabilities and platforms, the trade-offs between cost and performance, concerns about local-area networkability, interoperability, etc.
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+++++++++++++ LYNCH * Creating networked information is different from using networks as an access or dissemination vehicle * Networked multimedia on a large scale does not yet work * Typical CD-ROM publication model a two-edged sword * Publishing information on a CD-ROM in the present world of immature standards * Contrast between CD-ROM and network pricing * Examples demonstrated earlier in the day as a set of insular information gems * Paramount need to link databases * Layering to become increasingly necessary * Project NEEDS and the issues of information reuse and active versus passive use * X-Windows as a way of differentiating between network access and networked information * Barriers to the distribution of networked multimedia information * Need for good, real-time delivery protocols * The question of presentation integrity in client-server computing in the academic world * Recommendations for producing multimedia +++++++++++++
Clifford LYNCH, director, Library Automation, University of California, opened his talk with the general observation that networked information constituted a difficult and elusive topic because it is something just starting to develop and not yet fully understood. LYNCH contended that creating genuinely networked information was different from using networks as an access or dissemination vehicle and was more sophisticated and more subtle. He invited the members of the audience to extrapolate, from what they heard about the preceding demonstration projects, to what sort of a world of electronics information—scholarly, archival, cultural, etc.—they wished to end up with ten or fifteen years from now. LYNCH suggested that to extrapolate directly from these projects would produce unpleasant results.
Putting the issue of CD-ROM in perspective before getting into generalities on networked information, LYNCH observed that those engaged in multimedia today who wish to ship a product, so to say, probably do not have much choice except to use CD-ROM: networked multimedia on a large scale basically does not yet work because the technology does not exist. For example, anybody who has tried moving images around over the Internet knows that this is an exciting touch-and-go process, a fascinating and fertile area for experimentation, research, and development, but not something that one can become deeply enthusiastic about committing to production systems at this time.
This situation will change, LYNCH said. He differentiated CD-ROM from the practices that have been followed up to now in distributing data on CD-ROM. For LYNCH the problem with CD-ROM is not its portability or its slowness but the two-edged sword of having the retrieval application and the user interface inextricably bound up with the data, which is the typical CD-ROM publication model. It is not a case of publishing data but of distributing a typically stand-alone, typically closed system, all—software, user interface, and data—on a little disk. Hence, all the between-disk navigational issues as well as the impossibility in most cases of integrating data on one disk with that on another. Most CD-ROM retrieval software does not network very gracefully at present. However, in the present world of immature standards and lack of understanding of what network information is or what the ground rules are for creating or using it, publishing information on a CD-ROM does add value in a very real sense.
LYNCH drew a contrast between CD-ROM and network pricing and in doing so highlighted something bizarre in information pricing. A large institution such as the University of California has vendors who will offer to sell information on CD-ROM for a price per year in four digits, but for the same data (e.g., an abstracting and indexing database) on magnetic tape, regardless of how many people may use it concurrently, will quote a price in six digits.
What is packaged with the CD-ROM in one sense adds value—a complete access system, not just raw, unrefined information—although it is not generally perceived that way. This is because the access software, although it adds value, is viewed by some people, particularly in the university environment where there is a very heavy commitment to networking, as being developed in the wrong direction.
Given that context, LYNCH described the examples demonstrated as a set of insular information gems—Perseus, for example, offers nicely linked information, but would be very difficult to integrate with other databases, that is, to link together seamlessly with other source files from other sources. It resembles an island, and in this respect is similar to numerous stand-alone projects that are based on videodiscs, that is, on the single-workstation concept.
As scholarship evolves in a network environment, the paramount need will be to link databases. We must link personal databases to public databases, to group databases, in fairly seamless ways—which is extremely difficult in the environments under discussion with copies of databases proliferating all over the place.
The notion of layering also struck LYNCH as lurking in several of the projects demonstrated. Several databases in a sense constitute information archives without a significant amount of navigation built in. Educators, critics, and others will want a layered structure—one that defines or links paths through the layers to allow users to reach specific points. In LYNCH's view, layering will become increasingly necessary, and not just within a single resource but across resources (e.g., tracing mythology and cultural themes across several classics databases as well as a database of Renaissance culture). This ability to organize resources, to build things out of multiple other things on the network or select pieces of it, represented for LYNCH one of the key aspects of network information.
Contending that information reuse constituted another significant issue, LYNCH commended to the audience's attention Project NEEDS (i.e., National Engineering Education Delivery System). This project's objective is to produce a database of engineering courseware as well as the components that can be used to develop new courseware. In a number of the existing applications, LYNCH said, the issue of reuse (how much one can take apart and reuse in other applications) was not being well considered. He also raised the issue of active versus passive use, one aspect of which is how much information will be manipulated locally by users. Most people, he argued, may do a little browsing and then will wish to print. LYNCH was uncertain how these resources would be used by the vast majority of users in the network environment.
LYNCH next said a few words about X-Windows as a way of differentiating between network access and networked information. A number of the applications demonstrated at the Workshop could be rewritten to use X across the network, so that one could run them from any X-capable device- -a workstation, an X terminal—and transact with a database across the network. Although this opens up access a little, assuming one has enough network to handle it, it does not provide an interface to develop a program that conveniently integrates information from multiple databases. X is a viewing technology that has limits. In a real sense, it is just a graphical version of remote log-in across the network. X-type applications represent only one step in the progression towards real access.
LYNCH next discussed barriers to the distribution of networked multimedia information. The heart of the problem is a lack of standards to provide the ability for computers to talk to each other, retrieve information, and shuffle it around fairly casually. At the moment, little progress is being made on standards for networked information; for example, present standards do not cover images, digital voice, and digital video. A useful tool kit of exchange formats for basic texts is only now being assembled. The synchronization of content streams (i.e., synchronizing a voice track to a video track, establishing temporal relations between different components in a multimedia object) constitutes another issue for networked multimedia that is just beginning to receive attention.
Underlying network protocols also need some work; good, real-time delivery protocols on the Internet do not yet exist. In LYNCH's view, highly important in this context is the notion of networked digital object IDs, the ability of one object on the network to point to another object (or component thereof) on the network. Serious bandwidth issues also exist. LYNCH was uncertain if billion-bit-per-second networks would prove sufficient if numerous people ran video in parallel.
LYNCH concluded by offering an issue for database creators to consider, as well as several comments about what might constitute good trial multimedia experiments. In a networked information world the database builder or service builder (publisher) does not exercise the same extensive control over the integrity of the presentation; strange programs "munge" with one's data before the user sees it. Serious thought must be given to what guarantees integrity of presentation. Part of that is related to where one draws the boundaries around a networked information service. This question of presentation integrity in client-server computing has not been stressed enough in the academic world, LYNCH argued, though commercial service providers deal with it regularly.
Concerning multimedia, LYNCH observed that good multimedia at the moment is hideously expensive to produce. He recommended producing multimedia with either very high sale value, or multimedia with a very long life span, or multimedia that will have a very broad usage base and whose costs therefore can be amortized among large numbers of users. In this connection, historical and humanistically oriented material may be a good place to start, because it tends to have a longer life span than much of the scientific material, as well as a wider user base. LYNCH noted, for example, that American Memory fits many of the criteria outlined. He remarked the extensive discussion about bringing the Internet or the National Research and Education Network (NREN) into the K-12 environment as a way of helping the American educational system.
LYNCH closed by noting that the kinds of applications demonstrated struck him as excellent justifications of broad-scale networking for K-12, but that at this time no "killer" application exists to mobilize the K-12 community to obtain connectivity.
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Dearth of genuinely interesting applications on the network a slow-changing situation * The issue of the integrity of presentation in a networked environment * Several reasons why CD-ROM software does not network * +++++++++++++
During the discussion period that followed LYNCH's presentation, several additional points were made.
LYNCH reiterated even more strongly his contention that, historically, once one goes outside high-end science and the group of those who need access to supercomputers, there is a great dearth of genuinely interesting applications on the network. He saw this situation changing slowly, with some of the scientific databases and scholarly discussion groups and electronic journals coming on as well as with the availability of Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) and some of the databases that are being mounted there. However, many of those things do not seem to have piqued great popular interest. For instance, most high school students of LYNCH's acquaintance would not qualify as devotees of serious molecular biology.
Concerning the issue of the integrity of presentation, LYNCH believed that a couple of information providers have laid down the law at least on certain things. For example, his recollection was that the National Library of Medicine feels strongly that one needs to employ the identifier field if he or she is to mount a database commercially. The problem with a real networked environment is that one does not know who is reformatting and reprocessing one's data when one enters a client server mode. It becomes anybody's guess, for example, if the network uses a Z39.50 server, or what clients are doing with one's data. A data provider can say that his contract will only permit clients to have access to his data after he vets them and their presentation and makes certain it suits him. But LYNCH held out little expectation that the network marketplace would evolve in that way, because it required too much prior negotiation.
CD-ROM software does not network for a variety of reasons, LYNCH said. He speculated that CD-ROM publishers are not eager to have their products really hook into wide area networks, because they fear it will make their data suppliers nervous. Moreover, until relatively recently, one had to be rather adroit to run a full TCP/IP stack plus applications on a PC-size machine, whereas nowadays it is becoming easier as PCs grow bigger and faster. LYNCH also speculated that software providers had not heard from their customers until the last year or so, or had not heard from enough of their customers.
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+++++++++++++ BESSER * Implications of disseminating images on the network; planning the distribution of multimedia documents poses two critical implementation problems * Layered approach represents the way to deal with users' capabilities * Problems in platform design; file size and its implications for networking * Transmission of megabyte size images impractical * Compression and decompression at the user's end * Promising trends for compression * A disadvantage of using X-Windows * A project at the Smithsonian that mounts images on several networks * +++++++++++++
Howard BESSER, School of Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh, spoke primarily about multimedia, focusing on images and the broad implications of disseminating them on the network. He argued that planning the distribution of multimedia documents posed two critical implementation problems, which he framed in the form of two questions: 1) What platform will one use and what hardware and software will users have for viewing of the material? and 2) How can one deliver a sufficiently robust set of information in an accessible format in a reasonable amount of time? Depending on whether network or CD-ROM is the medium used, this question raises different issues of storage, compression, and transmission.
Concerning the design of platforms (e.g., sound, gray scale, simple color, etc.) and the various capabilities users may have, BESSER maintained that a layered approach was the way to deal with users' capabilities. A result would be that users with less powerful workstations would simply have less functionality. He urged members of the audience to advocate standards and accompanying software that handle layered functionality across a wide variety of platforms.
BESSER also addressed problems in platform design, namely, deciding how large a machine to design for situations when the largest number of users have the lowest level of the machine, and one desires higher functionality. BESSER then proceeded to the question of file size and its implications for networking. He discussed still images in the main. For example, a digital color image that fills the screen of a standard mega-pel workstation (Sun or Next) will require one megabyte of storage for an eight-bit image or three megabytes of storage for a true color or twenty-four-bit image. Lossless compression algorithms (that is, computational procedures in which no data is lost in the process of compressing [and decompressing] an image—the exact bit-representation is maintained) might bring storage down to a third of a megabyte per image, but not much further than that. The question of size makes it difficult to fit an appropriately sized set of these images on a single disk or to transmit them quickly enough on a network.
With these full screen mega-pel images that constitute a third of a megabyte, one gets 1,000-3,000 full-screen images on a one-gigabyte disk; a standard CD-ROM represents approximately 60 percent of that. Storing images the size of a PC screen (just 8 bit color) increases storage capacity to 4,000-12,000 images per gigabyte; 60 percent of that gives one the size of a CD-ROM, which in turn creates a major problem. One cannot have full-screen, full-color images with lossless compression; one must compress them or use a lower resolution. For megabyte-size images, anything slower than a T-1 speed is impractical. For example, on a fifty-six-kilobaud line, it takes three minutes to transfer a one-megabyte file, if it is not compressed; and this speed assumes ideal circumstances (no other user contending for network bandwidth). Thus, questions of disk access, remote display, and current telephone connection speed make transmission of megabyte-size images impractical.
BESSER then discussed ways to deal with these large images, for example, compression and decompression at the user's end. In this connection, the issues of how much one is willing to lose in the compression process and what image quality one needs in the first place are unknown. But what is known is that compression entails some loss of data. BESSER urged that more studies be conducted on image quality in different situations, for example, what kind of images are needed for what kind of disciplines, and what kind of image quality is needed for a browsing tool, an intermediate viewing tool, and archiving.
BESSER remarked two promising trends for compression: from a technical perspective, algorithms that use what is called subjective redundancy employ principles from visual psycho-physics to identify and remove information from the image that the human eye cannot perceive; from an interchange and interoperability perspective, the JPEG (i.e., Joint Photographic Experts Group, an ISO standard) compression algorithms also offer promise. These issues of compression and decompression, BESSER argued, resembled those raised earlier concerning the design of different platforms. Gauging the capabilities of potential users constitutes a primary goal. BESSER advocated layering or separating the images from the applications that retrieve and display them, to avoid tying them to particular software.
BESSER detailed several lessons learned from his work at Berkeley with Imagequery, especially the advantages and disadvantages of using X-Windows. In the latter category, for example, retrieval is tied directly to one's data, an intolerable situation in the long run on a networked system. Finally, BESSER described a project of Jim Wallace at the Smithsonian Institution, who is mounting images in a extremely rudimentary way on the Compuserv and Genie networks and is preparing to mount them on America On Line. Although the average user takes over thirty minutes to download these images (assuming a fairly fast modem), nevertheless, images have been downloaded 25,000 times.
BESSER concluded his talk with several comments on the business arrangement between the Smithsonian and Compuserv. He contended that not enough is known concerning the value of images.
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Creating digitized photographic collections nearly impossible except with large organizations like museums * Need for study to determine quality of images users will tolerate * +++++++++++++
During the brief exchange between LESK and BESSER that followed, several clarifications emerged.
LESK argued that the photographers were far ahead of BESSER: It is almost impossible to create such digitized photographic collections except with large organizations like museums, because all the photographic agencies have been going crazy about this and will not sign licensing agreements on any sort of reasonable terms. LESK had heard that National Geographic, for example, had tried to buy the right to use some image in some kind of educational production for $100 per image, but the photographers will not touch it. They want accounting and payment for each use, which cannot be accomplished within the system. BESSER responded that a consortium of photographers, headed by a former National Geographic photographer, had started assembling its own collection of electronic reproductions of images, with the money going back to the cooperative.
LESK contended that BESSER was unnecessarily pessimistic about multimedia images, because people are accustomed to low-quality images, particularly from video. BESSER urged the launching of a study to determine what users would tolerate, what they would feel comfortable with, and what absolutely is the highest quality they would ever need. Conceding that he had adopted a dire tone in order to arouse people about the issue, BESSER closed on a sanguine note by saying that he would not be in this business if he did not think that things could be accomplished.
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+++++++++++++ LARSEN * Issues of scalability and modularity * Geometric growth of the Internet and the role played by layering * Basic functions sustaining this growth * A library's roles and functions in a network environment * Effects of implementation of the Z39.50 protocol for information retrieval on the library system * The trade-off between volumes of data and its potential usage * A snapshot of current trends * +++++++++++++
Ronald LARSEN, associate director for information technology, University of Maryland at College Park, first addressed the issues of scalability and modularity. He noted the difficulty of anticipating the effects of orders-of-magnitude growth, reflecting on the twenty years of experience with the Arpanet and Internet. Recalling the day's demonstrations of CD-ROM and optical disk material, he went on to ask if the field has yet learned how to scale new systems to enable delivery and dissemination across large-scale networks.
LARSEN focused on the geometric growth of the Internet from its inception circa 1969 to the present, and the adjustments required to respond to that rapid growth. To illustrate the issue of scalability, LARSEN considered computer networks as including three generic components: computers, network communication nodes, and communication media. Each component scales (e.g., computers range from PCs to supercomputers; network nodes scale from interface cards in a PC through sophisticated routers and gateways; and communication media range from 2,400-baud dial-up facilities through 4.5-Mbps backbone links, and eventually to multigigabit-per-second communication lines), and architecturally, the components are organized to scale hierarchically from local area networks to international-scale networks. Such growth is made possible by building layers of communication protocols, as BESSER pointed out. By layering both physically and logically, a sense of scalability is maintained from local area networks in offices, across campuses, through bridges, routers, campus backbones, fiber-optic links, etc., up into regional networks and ultimately into national and international networks.
LARSEN then illustrated the geometric growth over a two-year period— through September 1991—of the number of networks that comprise the Internet. This growth has been sustained largely by the availability of three basic functions: electronic mail, file transfer (ftp), and remote log-on (telnet). LARSEN also reviewed the growth in the kind of traffic that occurs on the network. Network traffic reflects the joint contributions of a larger population of users and increasing use per user. Today one sees serious applications involving moving images across the network—a rarity ten years ago. LARSEN recalled and concurred with BESSER's main point that the interesting problems occur at the application level.
LARSEN then illustrated a model of a library's roles and functions in a network environment. He noted, in particular, the placement of on-line catalogues onto the network and patrons obtaining access to the library increasingly through local networks, campus networks, and the Internet. LARSEN supported LYNCH's earlier suggestion that we need to address fundamental questions of networked information in order to build environments that scale in the information sense as well as in the physical sense.
LARSEN supported the role of the library system as the access point into the nation's electronic collections. Implementation of the Z39.50 protocol for information retrieval would make such access practical and feasible. For example, this would enable patrons in Maryland to search California libraries, or other libraries around the world that are conformant with Z39.50 in a manner that is familiar to University of Maryland patrons. This client-server model also supports moving beyond secondary content into primary content. (The notion of how one links from secondary content to primary content, LARSEN said, represents a fundamental problem that requires rigorous thought.) After noting numerous network experiments in accessing full-text materials, including projects supporting the ordering of materials across the network, LARSEN revisited the issue of transmitting high-density, high-resolution color images across the network and the large amounts of bandwidth they require. He went on to address the bandwidth and synchronization problems inherent in sending full-motion video across the network.
LARSEN illustrated the trade-off between volumes of data in bytes or orders of magnitude and the potential usage of that data. He discussed transmission rates (particularly, the time it takes to move various forms of information), and what one could do with a network supporting multigigabit-per-second transmission. At the moment, the network environment includes a composite of data-transmission requirements, volumes and forms, going from steady to bursty (high-volume) and from very slow to very fast. This aggregate must be considered in the design, construction, and operation of multigigabyte networks.
LARSEN's objective is to use the networks and library systems now being constructed to increase access to resources wherever they exist, and thus, to evolve toward an on-line electronic virtual library.
LARSEN concluded by offering a snapshot of current trends: continuing geometric growth in network capacity and number of users; slower development of applications; and glacial development and adoption of standards. The challenge is to design and develop each new application system with network access and scalability in mind.
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+++++++++++++ BROWNRIGG * Access to the Internet cannot be taken for granted * Packet radio and the development of MELVYL in 1980-81 in the Division of Library Automation at the University of California * Design criteria for packet radio * A demonstration project in San Diego and future plans * Spread spectrum * Frequencies at which the radios will run and plans to reimplement the WAIS server software in the public domain * Need for an infrastructure of radios that do not move around * +++++++++++++
Edwin BROWNRIGG, executive director, Memex Research Institute, first polled the audience in order to seek out regular users of the Internet as well as those planning to use it some time in the future. With nearly everybody in the room falling into one category or the other, BROWNRIGG made a point re access, namely that numerous individuals, especially those who use the Internet every day, take for granted their access to it, the speeds with which they are connected, and how well it all works. However, as BROWNRIGG discovered between 1987 and 1989 in Australia, if one wants access to the Internet but cannot afford it or has some physical boundary that prevents her or him from gaining access, it can be extremely frustrating. He suggested that because of economics and physical barriers we were beginning to create a world of haves and have-nots in the process of scholarly communication, even in the United States.
BROWNRIGG detailed the development of MELVYL in academic year 1980-81 in the Division of Library Automation at the University of California, in order to underscore the issue of access to the system, which at the outset was extremely limited. In short, the project needed to build a network, which at that time entailed use of satellite technology, that is, putting earth stations on campus and also acquiring some terrestrial links from the State of California's microwave system. The installation of satellite links, however, did not solve the problem (which actually formed part of a larger problem involving politics and financial resources). For while the project team could get a signal onto a campus, it had no means of distributing the signal throughout the campus. The solution involved adopting a recent development in wireless communication called packet radio, which combined the basic notion of packet-switching with radio. The project used this technology to get the signal from a point on campus where it came down, an earth station for example, into the libraries, because it found that wiring the libraries, especially the older marble buildings, would cost $2,000-$5,000 per terminal.
BROWNRIGG noted that, ten years ago, the project had neither the public policy nor the technology that would have allowed it to use packet radio in any meaningful way. Since then much had changed. He proceeded to detail research and development of the technology, how it is being deployed in California, and what direction he thought it would take. The design criteria are to produce a high-speed, one-time, low-cost, high-quality, secure, license-free device (packet radio) that one can plug in and play today, forget about it, and have access to the Internet. By high speed, BROWNRIGG meant 1 megabyte and 1.5 megabytes. Those units have been built, he continued, and are in the process of being type-certified by an independent underwriting laboratory so that they can be type-licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. As is the case with citizens band, one will be able to purchase a unit and not have to worry about applying for a license.
The basic idea, BROWNRIGG elaborated, is to take high-speed radio data transmission and create a backbone network that at certain strategic points in the network will "gateway" into a medium-speed packet radio (i.e., one that runs at 38.4 kilobytes), so that perhaps by 1994-1995 people, like those in the audience for the price of a VCR could purchase a medium-speed radio for the office or home, have full network connectivity to the Internet, and partake of all its services, with no need for an FCC license and no regular bill from the local common carrier. BROWNRIGG presented several details of a demonstration project currently taking place in San Diego and described plans, pending funding, to install a full-bore network in the San Francisco area. This network will have 600 nodes running at backbone speeds, and 100 of these nodes will be libraries, which in turn will be the gateway ports to the 38.4 kilobyte radios that will give coverage for the neighborhoods surrounding the libraries.
BROWNRIGG next explained Part 15.247, a new rule within Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations enacted by the FCC in 1985. This rule challenged the industry, which has only now risen to the occasion, to build a radio that would run at no more than one watt of output power and use a fairly exotic method of modulating the radio wave called spread spectrum. Spread spectrum in fact permits the building of networks so that numerous data communications can occur simultaneously, without interfering with each other, within the same wide radio channel.
BROWNRIGG explained that the frequencies at which the radios would run are very short wave signals. They are well above standard microwave and radar. With a radio wave that small, one watt becomes a tremendous punch per bit and thus makes transmission at reasonable speed possible. In order to minimize the potential for congestion, the project is undertaking to reimplement software which has been available in the networking business and is taken for granted now, for example, TCP/IP, routing algorithms, bridges, and gateways. In addition, the project plans to take the WAIS server software in the public domain and reimplement it so that one can have a WAIS server on a Mac instead of a Unix machine. The Memex Research Institute believes that libraries, in particular, will want to use the WAIS servers with packet radio. This project, which has a team of about twelve people, will run through 1993 and will include the 100 libraries already mentioned as well as other professionals such as those in the medical profession, engineering, and law. Thus, the need is to create an infrastructure of radios that do not move around, which, BROWNRIGG hopes, will solve a problem not only for libraries but for individuals who, by and large today, do not have access to the Internet from their homes and offices.
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+++++++++++++ DISCUSSION * Project operating frequencies * +++++++++++++
During a brief discussion period, which also concluded the day's proceedings, BROWNRIGG stated that the project was operating in four frequencies. The slow speed is operating at 435 megahertz, and it would later go up to 920 megahertz. With the high-speed frequency, the one-megabyte radios will run at 2.4 gigabits, and 1.5 will run at 5.7. At 5.7, rain can be a factor, but it would have to be tropical rain, unlike what falls in most parts of the United States.
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SESSION IV. IMAGE CAPTURE, TEXT CAPTURE, OVERVIEW OF TEXT AND IMAGE STORAGE FORMATS
William HOOTON, vice president of operations, I-NET, moderated this session.
+++++++++++++ KENNEY * Factors influencing development of CXP * Advantages of using digital technology versus photocopy and microfilm * A primary goal of CXP; publishing challenges * Characteristics of copies printed * Quality of samples achieved in image capture * Several factors to be considered in choosing scanning * Emphasis of CXP on timely and cost-effective production of black-and-white printed facsimiles * Results of producing microfilm from digital files * Advantages of creating microfilm * Details concerning production * Costs * Role of digital technology in library preservation * +++++++++++++
Anne KENNEY, associate director, Department of Preservation and Conservation, Cornell University, opened her talk by observing that the Cornell Xerox Project (CXP) has been guided by the assumption that the ability to produce printed facsimiles or to replace paper with paper would be important, at least for the present generation of users and equipment. She described three factors that influenced development of the project: 1) Because the project has emphasized the preservation of deteriorating brittle books, the quality of what was produced had to be sufficiently high to return a paper replacement to the shelf. CXP was only interested in using: 2) a system that was cost-effective, which meant that it had to be cost-competitive with the processes currently available, principally photocopy and microfilm, and 3) new or currently available product hardware and software.
KENNEY described the advantages that using digital technology offers over both photocopy and microfilm: 1) The potential exists to create a higher quality reproduction of a deteriorating original than conventional light-lens technology. 2) Because a digital image is an encoded representation, it can be reproduced again and again with no resulting loss of quality, as opposed to the situation with light-lens processes, in which there is discernible difference between a second and a subsequent generation of an image. 3) A digital image can be manipulated in a number of ways to improve image capture; for example, Xerox has developed a windowing application that enables one to capture a page containing both text and illustrations in a manner that optimizes the reproduction of both. (With light-lens technology, one must choose which to optimize, text or the illustration; in preservation microfilming, the current practice is to shoot an illustrated page twice, once to highlight the text and the second time to provide the best capture for the illustration.) 4) A digital image can also be edited, density levels adjusted to remove underlining and stains, and to increase legibility for faint documents. 5) On-screen inspection can take place at the time of initial setup and adjustments made prior to scanning, factors that substantially reduce the number of retakes required in quality control.
A primary goal of CXP has been to evaluate the paper output printed on the Xerox DocuTech, a high-speed printer that produces 600-dpi pages from scanned images at a rate of 135 pages a minute. KENNEY recounted several publishing challenges to represent faithful and legible reproductions of the originals that the 600-dpi copy for the most part successfully captured. For example, many of the deteriorating volumes in the project were heavily illustrated with fine line drawings or halftones or came in languages such as Japanese, in which the buildup of characters comprised of varying strokes is difficult to reproduce at lower resolutions; a surprising number of them came with annotations and mathematical formulas, which it was critical to be able to duplicate exactly.
KENNEY noted that 1) the copies are being printed on paper that meets the ANSI standards for performance, 2) the DocuTech printer meets the machine and toner requirements for proper adhesion of print to page, as described by the National Archives, and thus 3) paper product is considered to be the archival equivalent of preservation photocopy.
KENNEY then discussed several samples of the quality achieved in the project that had been distributed in a handout, for example, a copy of a print-on-demand version of the 1911 Reed lecture on the steam turbine, which contains halftones, line drawings, and illustrations embedded in text; the first four loose pages in the volume compared the capture capabilities of scanning to photocopy for a standard test target, the IEEE standard 167A 1987 test chart. In all instances scanning proved superior to photocopy, though only slightly more so in one.
Conceding the simplistic nature of her review of the quality of scanning to photocopy, KENNEY described it as one representation of the kinds of settings that could be used with scanning capabilities on the equipment CXP uses. KENNEY also pointed out that CXP investigated the quality achieved with binary scanning only, and noted the great promise in gray scale and color scanning, whose advantages and disadvantages need to be examined. She argued further that scanning resolutions and file formats can represent a complex trade-off between the time it takes to capture material, file size, fidelity to the original, and on-screen display; and printing and equipment availability. All these factors must be taken into consideration.
CXP placed primary emphasis on the production in a timely and cost-effective manner of printed facsimiles that consisted largely of black-and-white text. With binary scanning, large files may be compressed efficiently and in a lossless manner (i.e., no data is lost in the process of compressing [and decompressing] an image—the exact bit-representation is maintained) using Group 4 CCITT (i.e., the French acronym for International Consultative Committee for Telegraph and Telephone) compression. CXP was getting compression ratios of about forty to one. Gray-scale compression, which primarily uses JPEG, is much less economical and can represent a lossy compression (i.e., not lossless), so that as one compresses and decompresses, the illustration is subtly changed. While binary files produce a high-quality printed version, it appears 1) that other combinations of spatial resolution with gray and/or color hold great promise as well, and 2) that gray scale can represent a tremendous advantage for on-screen viewing. The quality associated with binary and gray scale also depends on the equipment used. For instance, binary scanning produces a much better copy on a binary printer. |
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