Using Spatial Hypertext as a Workspace for Digital Library Providers and Patrons

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

This Targeted Research project is investigating the use of spatial hypertext by digital library patrons to build personal and shared annotated digital information spaces, and by digital library providers to organize, annotate, and maintain collections of digital information. Spatial hypertext is a class of information workspace in which users collect source materials as information objects in a set of two-dimensional spaces and imply attributes of and relationships between the materials via visual and spatial cues. The ease of expressing evolving interpretations makes spatial hypertext well suited for tasks where the task and materials (or the user's understanding of these) change over time. The PI and colleagues are extending an existing spatial hypertext system, the Visual Knowledge Builder, in the following areas: (1) suggestion-based methods supporting the incremental specification of metadata; (2) dialog generation for converting the visual interpretation that occurs in the workspace into metadata; and (3) history annotation, filtering, and editing for viewing how collections change over time. By expanding the means to create personal digital information spaces beyond textual modes into visual ones, this investigation promises to broaden the impact of the NSDL on users.