The Isaac NetworkThe Isaac Network

Susan Calcari Director, Internet Scout Project

scout.cs.wisc.edu

Internet Scout Project: Internet Scout Project: Surf SmarterSurf Smarter

Scout Report Subject Specific Scout Reports Scout Report Signpost Net-happenings, Net-newsletters KIDS Report Scout Research: The Isaac Network

Today’s TopicsToday’s Topics

“The Crete Meeting” -- Cooperation between Subject Gateways, held at EDLC, Crete, September 1998, organized by UK

“The View from the States”

The Isaac Network: One contribution to the “IMesh”

I. “The Crete Meeting”I. “The Crete Meeting”

Inspired by UK discussions of the future of “subject gateways,” e.g. coverage, sustainability

2nd Annual European Digital Library Conference: EDLC Informal meeting of 25 participants from 15 countries

DiscussionDiscussion

Common questions worldwide:

– Duplication and gaps in subject coverage

– Ongoing funding, self-sufficiency

– Interoperability and standards Need for guidelines for subject gateway development to

facilitate cooperation

Identified Common NeedsIdentified Common Needs

Summary of existing gateways “Best practice” guidelines Definition(s) of “quality resources” Scope of content Interoperability and standards

Result: Workshops Series for Result: Workshops Series for development of “IMesh Guidelines” development of “IMesh Guidelines”

Modeled on the success of the Dublin Core Workshop series

Invited group: 30-40 experts in related fields UK: Spring 1999 CEI/JISC funded USA: Fall 1999 NSF funded (proposed)

II. Vision: The View from the StatesII. Vision: The View from the States

The Amazing Internet Challenge: How Leading Projects are Organizing the Internet

Guide to 12 resource directories Mission, collection, staffing, timeline, software, hardware,

budget, future, vision ALA Editions, Spring 1999

The Amazing Internet ChallengeThe Amazing Internet Challenge

Higher EducationBUBL EEVL OMNI SOSIG AgNICArgus ClearinghouseInfoMine Scout Report Signpost

Public LibrariesInternet Public Library Librarians’ Index to the Internet

K-12Blue Web’N

Undergraduate EducationMath Archives

Working TogetherWorking Together

Educators and librarians will continue to use a wide variety of sources; special interest directories will play an important role

Organized and presented by those expert in the systemization of knowledge

Willingness to learn from success and failure of both ourselves and others

Cooperate, InteroperateCooperate, Interoperate

Cooperate to avoid duplication of effort on content Devise a division of responsibility Standardized content and quality guidelines Reasonably similar user interfaces Development of an “information architecture”

Metadata (!)Metadata (!)

Consistent metadata standards Metadata applied by neutral, expert third parties Mapping of different metadata schemas across collections Standardized indexing schemes

III. The Isaac Network: Resource III. The Isaac Network: Resource Discovery GoalsDiscovery Goals

Search highly selective collections of resources, hand-chosen by information specialists

A single query will reach geographically distributed collections

User doesn’t need knowledge of all collections Ultimately the end user is judge of what is relevant and

credible: we can narrow the subset

Content Development:Content Development:Top Down or Bottom Up?Top Down or Bottom Up?

Funding = Audience = Funding Local projects, funding based on local needs, local

audience Most chance for longevity: “projects” are becoming part of

operations Bonus: As content providers they want to share their work

more broadly

Needs of Content ProvidersNeeds of Content Providers

Content providers need to retain control Content, look and feel, maintenance of records Application of metadata Retain ownership and credit

Goals of the Isaac NetworkGoals of the Isaac Network

Build an infrastructure for sharing and searching metadata from distributed metadata collections

Test bed for experimentation with metadata, indexing, and query referral systems

Develop collaborative laboratory for future research: indexing algorithms, assisted robots

Potential Content PartnersPotential Content Partners

While primary audience is higher education, all are welcome and encouraged to join

Government, public libraries, non-profit, commercial May be focussed on a single discipline, or cover a broad

subject range Closed system maintains quality Can be a “full node” or a “collection node”

Built on Existing WorkBuilt on Existing Work

ROADS: Whois++ Directory Services: LDAP

– Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

– White pages directories Common Indexing Protocol (CIP)

Three Components of the Three Components of the Information ArchitectureInformation Architecture

Index service:

– Common Indexing Protocol (CIP) Search service:

– Lightweight Directory Access Protocol: LDAP User Interface:

– Web browser, forms

Index Service: CIPIndex Service: CIP

Generates indexes from each collection of metadata Gathers indexes from other nodes Installs indexes on “full nodes” to use for referrals

Search Service: LDAPSearch Service: LDAP

Makes metadata collection available for indexing and searching

Query processing, returning results Query referrals

User Interface: Web formsUser Interface: Web forms

Web browser, using forms Locally configurable Multiple access points to Isaac Network

Scout Team SupportScout Team Support

Software suite Technical expertise and support

– Software installation and configuration

– Data extraction Metadata development

– Field determination

– Schema mapping Documentation Outreach and dissemination

Content Partner CriteriaContent Partner Criteria

Metadata applied: DC or mapped to DC Minimum field set:

– Title, author, subject or keywords, resource description, URL

UNIX host Expertise to work with Scout team

– Data extraction and conversion

– Metadata mapping

Isaac InteroperabilityIsaac Interoperability

ROADS

– Demo version of LDAP/Whois++ “gateway” UK recently announced the Resource Discovery Network

Center (RDNC)

– Centralized support for subject gateway development and operations: existing and new gateways

CHIC Pilot

– TERENA project to implement cross-searching across national research networks in Europe

Current Content PartnersCurrent Content Partners

Special Study Guides/SSG-Fachinformation

– Lower Saxony State and University Library, Goettingen, Germany

– Utilizing “complete” set of Dublin Core fields Cornell Law Library: InSITE

– Filemaker Pro database

– Added author field at our request

Responses: InternationalResponses: International

BUBL EEVL OMNI SOSIG DTV - Denmark EdNA - Australia

Responses: Established ProjectsResponses: Established Projects

AMICO - museums InfoMine Internet Public Library Librarians’ Index to Internet State of Washington

Responses: Local ProjectsResponses: Local Projects

DigLib - Louisiana State University ELVIS - Seneca College History Matters - CUNY, GMU Vlib: Library Resources - Indiana University,

Bloomington

FutureFuture

Cataloging tools

– harvest embedded metadata for human augmentation Indexing methods Search capabilities

– Ranking

– Proximity

A Vision: IMeshA Vision: IMesh

Will be more than one “solution” Networks will interoperate at content level US/UK/Australian collaboration

Internet Scout ProjectInternet Scout Project

Susan Calcari

scal@cs.wisc.edu

scout.cs.wisc.edu

/scout-research

Architecture Overview for Collaborators