New Age NavigationInnovative Information Interfaces

for Electronic Journals

Gerry McKiernan

ABSTRACT While it is typical for electronic journals to offer conven-tional search features similar to those provided by electronic databases aselect number of e-journals have also made available higher-level accessoptions as well In this article we review several novel technologies andimplementations that creatively exploit the inherent potential of the digi-tal environment to further facilitate use of e-collections We conclude withspeculation on the functionalities of a next-generation e-journal interfacethat are likely to emerge in the near future [Article copies available for a feefrom The Haworth Document Delivery Service 1-800-HAWORTH E-mail ad-dress ltdocdeliveryhaworthpresscomgt Website lthttpwwwHaworthPresscomgt copy 2003 by The Haworth Press Inc All rights reserved]

KEYWORDS E-journals interfaces visualization navigation

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge

Where is the knowledge that we lost in information1

Gerry McKiernan MS is Science and Technology Librarian and BibliographerIowa State University Library 152 Parks Ames IA 50011 (E-mail gerrymckiastateedu)

The Serials Librarian Vol 45(2) 2003httpwwwhaworthpresscomstoreproductaspsku=J123

2003 by The Haworth Press Inc All rights reserved101300J123v45n02_06 87

D-LIBreg MAGAZINE

Still Digital After All These Years

D-Libreg Magazine (dliborg) is ldquoa magazine about digital library issues forresearchers developers and the intellectually curiousrdquo produced by the Cor-poration for National Research Initiatives (wwwcnrirestonvaus) a not-for-profit organization formed in 1986 to ldquofoster research and development for theNational Information Infrastructurerdquo Since July 1995 D-Lib Magazine haspublished articles discussions project news and conference and publicationannouncements about digital library research It has no print analogue nor hasone been proposed ldquo[B]y testing the limits of writing in and for a wholly net-worked environmentrdquo the magazine itself was viewed from the onset as anldquoexperiment in electronic publishingrdquo From its inception D-Lib Magazinewas considered to be ldquoa testbed for experiments in electronic publishing andadvanced research in digital librariesrdquo Indeed its original editor in her firsteditorial was ldquomost intriguedrdquo and looked forward to publishing ldquosubstantivearticles that [took] advantage of the power of hypermedia rdquo2

Semantic Analysis and Visualization

In the spirit of its original intent and philosophy and in recognition of theneed to explore alternatives to current information retrieval methods in digitalcollections D-Lib Magazine recently published a review article that describesan innovative index to the magazine itself With the full-text corpus of themagazine as the testbed its authors document illustrate and demonstrate ex-perimental digital technologies that seek to reduce the lsquocognitive loadrsquo associ-ated with conventional search options and provide users with a betterunderstanding of online document collections3

As observed by these investigators

Numerous IR [information retrieval] techniques have been developed tohelp deal with the information overload problem These techniques con-centrate on mathematical models an algorithms for retrieval Popular IRmodels such as the Boolean model the vector-space model the probabil-istic model and their variants are well established

From the userrsquos perspective however it is still difficult to use cur-rent information retrieval systems4

As an alternative to current conventional information systems the research-ers have developed a method that automatically generates the terms and their se-mantic relationships representing relevant topics covered in the corpus of a digitalcollection The generated terms are called lsquoconceptsrsquo and the generated termsand their semantic relationships are called the Concept Space (ellaslisindianaedu~junzhangdlibIV1html) Concepts are discovered using an algorithm

88 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

based on an automated thesaurus generation procedure The concept space isvisualized in a 2-D representation that lsquoroughlyrsquo shows the semantic relation-ships among concepts (see Figure 1) In the visualization concept lsquonodesrsquo arelabeled with the concept name by default Moving the cursor over a node willdisplay both the concept name and the number of documents within the corpusassociated with it The concept label and number of associated documents canbe displayed concurrently by changing the lsquolabel of nodersquo option (see Figure 1lower right corner) All nodes are initially color-coded based on cluster analy-sis strongly related concept nodes are designated by the same color (eg blue)In the presentation similar concepts are generally located close to each otherfor example lsquocopyrightrsquo is near lsquopermissionrsquo (see Figure 1 middle right)

Three tab panels (lsquoControlrsquo lsquoAttributesrsquo and lsquoConcept Listrsquo) (see Figure 1upper right corner) offer users the ability to control and customize the visual-

Gerry McKiernan 89

FIGURE 1 The visual display and search interface for D-Libreg Magazine Con-cept Space with a control panel and associated search box The visualizationsection with the labeled concept nodes (center) and the control panels (right) oc-cupy most of the screen A search box is found at the bottom left of the display

ization among other options The attributes panel for example allows the userto manipulate different visual attributes of nodes such as their shape color andlabel An alternative visualization can display the relative percentage of docu-ments associated with a concept in the D-Lib Magazine corpus by use of shadecoding (see Figure 2) Concepts with fewer than 10 related articles are shownin white while concepts that appear in more than 30 (but less than 50) of thearticles are shown as gray nodes concepts that occur in more than 50 of the ar-ticles are shown in black With this visualization users can quickly determinefor example that the concepts lsquodisseminatersquo lsquointeroperabilityrsquo and lsquoqueryrsquo arediscussed more frequently than are lsquodoirsquo lsquoelibrsquo and lsquoncstrlrsquo

The Concept Space interface allows the user to conduct searches on the col-lection by selecting labeled concepts directly from the visualization (eglsquocopyrightrsquo) or by inputting specific terms or phrases (see Figure 1 bottomleft) Users can select as many concepts as desired from the visualization and

90 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 2 Users can display the relative percentage of documents associatedwith concept nodes of the D-Libreg Magazine corpus by selecting an alternativelabel option

construct appropriate Boolean statements by selecting the appropriate opera-tion (lsquoANDrsquo or lsquoORrsquo) in the search box panel (see Figure 2 bottom left) Con-cept label terms can also be combined with keywords within a query When thesearch button is clicked the search results are displayed in a separate browserand include the article title author(s) and volume and issue number (if as-signed) for each relevant document By clicking the hyperlinked phrase (lsquoFulltextrsquo) found as the last field for each entry in the results listing the associatedfull-text item is displayed (see Figure 3)5

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS SOM INDEX

Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg

The Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (cdswebu-strasbgfr) is ldquoan International Service under the Federation of Astronomical

Gerry McKiernan 91

FIGURE 3 The full text of articles and other items can be directly retrieved fromthe search results listing of a D-Lib Magazine Concept Space search

and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS)rdquo that ldquocollects homoge-nizes distributes and preserves astronomical informationrdquo The main CDS ser-vices are SIMBAD (simbadu-strasbgfrsim-fidpl) a reference database forthe identification and bibliography of astronomical objects outside the solarsystem VizieR (vizieru-strasbgfrviz-binVizieR) a search portal to astro-nomical catalogs published tables and other information sources and Aladin(aladinu-strasbgfraladingml) ldquoan interactive software sky atlas [that al-lows] the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the skyrdquo

CDS also maintains and distributes the Dictionary of Nomenclature of Ce-lestial Objects (vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binDic) AstroWeb Astronomy on theWeb (cdswebu-strasbgfrastrowebhtml) as well as StarPages AstronomyYellow Pages on the Web (cdswebu-strasbgfr~heckspageshtm) In addi-tion CDS hosts mirror copies of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)database (adswwwharvardedu) and provides access to the full-text of selectastronomical journals (eg Astrophysical Journal Astronomical Journal andPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and to the article ab-stracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics and its Supplement Series6

SOM Like It Hot

CDS is also actively involved in the development of bibliographic informa-tion retrieval tools notably visualized indexes to digital collections A premierexample of this tool is the lsquodocument maprsquo developed for Astronomy and Astro-physics (simbadu-strasbgfrA+Amappl) using the Kohonen Self OrganizingMap (SOM) technique The Kohonen SOM isan algorithm that automaticallyorganizes documents into a two-dimensional grid so that related documentsappear close to each other and general topics appear in well-defined areas TheSOM visualization is presented as a density map that graphically representspapers of similar content (see Figure 4 left frame)7 Presently the SOM mapfor Astronomy and Astrophysics indexes more than 10300 articles for the pe-riod 1994-2002

To use the interface and retrieve relevant articles users select an appropri-ate node (eg lsquoStarsrsquo) on the map in turn the keywords associated with thenode are listed in a right-side frame (see Figure 4) An entry indicating thenumber of documents containing any of these selected keywords is displayedabove the keyword listing in the frame (eg lsquoPrincipal Maps Node 103 6documentsrsquo) Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) entries forthose items assigned the selected keyword are displayed in the left-side framewhere the SOM map had originally appeared (see Figure 5)

The full records for all entries may be retrieved by clicking the lsquoFetch Ref-erencesrsquo button at the top of the listing in the left-side frame Upon selectionthe full records for will be concatenated in groups of five (5) records (default)in this same frame replacing the entry listing Alternatively the user may dis-play the full record for an entry (eg Abundances of light elements in metal-

92 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

poor stars I Atmospheric parameters and a new T_eff_ scale) by selecting itsassociated hyperlinked bibliographic code (eg lsquo1996AampA314191Grsquo)

A full record provides the standard bibliographic data and abstract as-signed keywords links to an associated lsquoCDS filersquo SIMBAD file and lsquofull pa-perrsquo if available as well as the corresponding record within the NASA ADSservice The ADS record offers access to the document full-text in a variety offormats when available as well as a separate link to the references in thesource documents In addition the ADS service provides links to a listing ofworks that cite the article associated with the displayed record to other docu-ments in the ADS database with lsquoSimilar Abstractsrsquo and to lsquoAlso-Read Arti-clesrsquo the set of articles displayed by users who also displayed the articlecurrently being viewed8

Gerry McKiernan 93

FIGURE 4 Screen print showing the base Astronomy amp Astrophysics SOMmap display (left side) The right frame displays a list of keywords retrieved af-ter selecting the lsquoStarsrsquo node (Node 103) (middle right) from the SOM map

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

based on an automated thesaurus generation procedure The concept space isvisualized in a 2-D representation that lsquoroughlyrsquo shows the semantic relation-ships among concepts (see Figure 1) In the visualization concept lsquonodesrsquo arelabeled with the concept name by default Moving the cursor over a node willdisplay both the concept name and the number of documents within the corpusassociated with it The concept label and number of associated documents canbe displayed concurrently by changing the lsquolabel of nodersquo option (see Figure 1lower right corner) All nodes are initially color-coded based on cluster analy-sis strongly related concept nodes are designated by the same color (eg blue)In the presentation similar concepts are generally located close to each otherfor example lsquocopyrightrsquo is near lsquopermissionrsquo (see Figure 1 middle right)

Three tab panels (lsquoControlrsquo lsquoAttributesrsquo and lsquoConcept Listrsquo) (see Figure 1upper right corner) offer users the ability to control and customize the visual-

Gerry McKiernan 89

FIGURE 1 The visual display and search interface for D-Libreg Magazine Con-cept Space with a control panel and associated search box The visualizationsection with the labeled concept nodes (center) and the control panels (right) oc-cupy most of the screen A search box is found at the bottom left of the display

ization among other options The attributes panel for example allows the userto manipulate different visual attributes of nodes such as their shape color andlabel An alternative visualization can display the relative percentage of docu-ments associated with a concept in the D-Lib Magazine corpus by use of shadecoding (see Figure 2) Concepts with fewer than 10 related articles are shownin white while concepts that appear in more than 30 (but less than 50) of thearticles are shown as gray nodes concepts that occur in more than 50 of the ar-ticles are shown in black With this visualization users can quickly determinefor example that the concepts lsquodisseminatersquo lsquointeroperabilityrsquo and lsquoqueryrsquo arediscussed more frequently than are lsquodoirsquo lsquoelibrsquo and lsquoncstrlrsquo

The Concept Space interface allows the user to conduct searches on the col-lection by selecting labeled concepts directly from the visualization (eglsquocopyrightrsquo) or by inputting specific terms or phrases (see Figure 1 bottomleft) Users can select as many concepts as desired from the visualization and

90 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 2 Users can display the relative percentage of documents associatedwith concept nodes of the D-Libreg Magazine corpus by selecting an alternativelabel option

construct appropriate Boolean statements by selecting the appropriate opera-tion (lsquoANDrsquo or lsquoORrsquo) in the search box panel (see Figure 2 bottom left) Con-cept label terms can also be combined with keywords within a query When thesearch button is clicked the search results are displayed in a separate browserand include the article title author(s) and volume and issue number (if as-signed) for each relevant document By clicking the hyperlinked phrase (lsquoFulltextrsquo) found as the last field for each entry in the results listing the associatedfull-text item is displayed (see Figure 3)5

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS SOM INDEX

Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg

The Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (cdswebu-strasbgfr) is ldquoan International Service under the Federation of Astronomical

Gerry McKiernan 91

FIGURE 3 The full text of articles and other items can be directly retrieved fromthe search results listing of a D-Lib Magazine Concept Space search

and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS)rdquo that ldquocollects homoge-nizes distributes and preserves astronomical informationrdquo The main CDS ser-vices are SIMBAD (simbadu-strasbgfrsim-fidpl) a reference database forthe identification and bibliography of astronomical objects outside the solarsystem VizieR (vizieru-strasbgfrviz-binVizieR) a search portal to astro-nomical catalogs published tables and other information sources and Aladin(aladinu-strasbgfraladingml) ldquoan interactive software sky atlas [that al-lows] the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the skyrdquo

CDS also maintains and distributes the Dictionary of Nomenclature of Ce-lestial Objects (vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binDic) AstroWeb Astronomy on theWeb (cdswebu-strasbgfrastrowebhtml) as well as StarPages AstronomyYellow Pages on the Web (cdswebu-strasbgfr~heckspageshtm) In addi-tion CDS hosts mirror copies of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)database (adswwwharvardedu) and provides access to the full-text of selectastronomical journals (eg Astrophysical Journal Astronomical Journal andPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and to the article ab-stracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics and its Supplement Series6

SOM Like It Hot

CDS is also actively involved in the development of bibliographic informa-tion retrieval tools notably visualized indexes to digital collections A premierexample of this tool is the lsquodocument maprsquo developed for Astronomy and Astro-physics (simbadu-strasbgfrA+Amappl) using the Kohonen Self OrganizingMap (SOM) technique The Kohonen SOM isan algorithm that automaticallyorganizes documents into a two-dimensional grid so that related documentsappear close to each other and general topics appear in well-defined areas TheSOM visualization is presented as a density map that graphically representspapers of similar content (see Figure 4 left frame)7 Presently the SOM mapfor Astronomy and Astrophysics indexes more than 10300 articles for the pe-riod 1994-2002

To use the interface and retrieve relevant articles users select an appropri-ate node (eg lsquoStarsrsquo) on the map in turn the keywords associated with thenode are listed in a right-side frame (see Figure 4) An entry indicating thenumber of documents containing any of these selected keywords is displayedabove the keyword listing in the frame (eg lsquoPrincipal Maps Node 103 6documentsrsquo) Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) entries forthose items assigned the selected keyword are displayed in the left-side framewhere the SOM map had originally appeared (see Figure 5)

The full records for all entries may be retrieved by clicking the lsquoFetch Ref-erencesrsquo button at the top of the listing in the left-side frame Upon selectionthe full records for will be concatenated in groups of five (5) records (default)in this same frame replacing the entry listing Alternatively the user may dis-play the full record for an entry (eg Abundances of light elements in metal-

92 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

poor stars I Atmospheric parameters and a new T_eff_ scale) by selecting itsassociated hyperlinked bibliographic code (eg lsquo1996AampA314191Grsquo)

A full record provides the standard bibliographic data and abstract as-signed keywords links to an associated lsquoCDS filersquo SIMBAD file and lsquofull pa-perrsquo if available as well as the corresponding record within the NASA ADSservice The ADS record offers access to the document full-text in a variety offormats when available as well as a separate link to the references in thesource documents In addition the ADS service provides links to a listing ofworks that cite the article associated with the displayed record to other docu-ments in the ADS database with lsquoSimilar Abstractsrsquo and to lsquoAlso-Read Arti-clesrsquo the set of articles displayed by users who also displayed the articlecurrently being viewed8

Gerry McKiernan 93

FIGURE 4 Screen print showing the base Astronomy amp Astrophysics SOMmap display (left side) The right frame displays a list of keywords retrieved af-ter selecting the lsquoStarsrsquo node (Node 103) (middle right) from the SOM map

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

ization among other options The attributes panel for example allows the userto manipulate different visual attributes of nodes such as their shape color andlabel An alternative visualization can display the relative percentage of docu-ments associated with a concept in the D-Lib Magazine corpus by use of shadecoding (see Figure 2) Concepts with fewer than 10 related articles are shownin white while concepts that appear in more than 30 (but less than 50) of thearticles are shown as gray nodes concepts that occur in more than 50 of the ar-ticles are shown in black With this visualization users can quickly determinefor example that the concepts lsquodisseminatersquo lsquointeroperabilityrsquo and lsquoqueryrsquo arediscussed more frequently than are lsquodoirsquo lsquoelibrsquo and lsquoncstrlrsquo

The Concept Space interface allows the user to conduct searches on the col-lection by selecting labeled concepts directly from the visualization (eglsquocopyrightrsquo) or by inputting specific terms or phrases (see Figure 1 bottomleft) Users can select as many concepts as desired from the visualization and

90 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 2 Users can display the relative percentage of documents associatedwith concept nodes of the D-Libreg Magazine corpus by selecting an alternativelabel option

construct appropriate Boolean statements by selecting the appropriate opera-tion (lsquoANDrsquo or lsquoORrsquo) in the search box panel (see Figure 2 bottom left) Con-cept label terms can also be combined with keywords within a query When thesearch button is clicked the search results are displayed in a separate browserand include the article title author(s) and volume and issue number (if as-signed) for each relevant document By clicking the hyperlinked phrase (lsquoFulltextrsquo) found as the last field for each entry in the results listing the associatedfull-text item is displayed (see Figure 3)5

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS SOM INDEX

Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg

The Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (cdswebu-strasbgfr) is ldquoan International Service under the Federation of Astronomical

Gerry McKiernan 91

FIGURE 3 The full text of articles and other items can be directly retrieved fromthe search results listing of a D-Lib Magazine Concept Space search

and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS)rdquo that ldquocollects homoge-nizes distributes and preserves astronomical informationrdquo The main CDS ser-vices are SIMBAD (simbadu-strasbgfrsim-fidpl) a reference database forthe identification and bibliography of astronomical objects outside the solarsystem VizieR (vizieru-strasbgfrviz-binVizieR) a search portal to astro-nomical catalogs published tables and other information sources and Aladin(aladinu-strasbgfraladingml) ldquoan interactive software sky atlas [that al-lows] the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the skyrdquo

CDS also maintains and distributes the Dictionary of Nomenclature of Ce-lestial Objects (vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binDic) AstroWeb Astronomy on theWeb (cdswebu-strasbgfrastrowebhtml) as well as StarPages AstronomyYellow Pages on the Web (cdswebu-strasbgfr~heckspageshtm) In addi-tion CDS hosts mirror copies of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)database (adswwwharvardedu) and provides access to the full-text of selectastronomical journals (eg Astrophysical Journal Astronomical Journal andPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and to the article ab-stracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics and its Supplement Series6

SOM Like It Hot

CDS is also actively involved in the development of bibliographic informa-tion retrieval tools notably visualized indexes to digital collections A premierexample of this tool is the lsquodocument maprsquo developed for Astronomy and Astro-physics (simbadu-strasbgfrA+Amappl) using the Kohonen Self OrganizingMap (SOM) technique The Kohonen SOM isan algorithm that automaticallyorganizes documents into a two-dimensional grid so that related documentsappear close to each other and general topics appear in well-defined areas TheSOM visualization is presented as a density map that graphically representspapers of similar content (see Figure 4 left frame)7 Presently the SOM mapfor Astronomy and Astrophysics indexes more than 10300 articles for the pe-riod 1994-2002

To use the interface and retrieve relevant articles users select an appropri-ate node (eg lsquoStarsrsquo) on the map in turn the keywords associated with thenode are listed in a right-side frame (see Figure 4) An entry indicating thenumber of documents containing any of these selected keywords is displayedabove the keyword listing in the frame (eg lsquoPrincipal Maps Node 103 6documentsrsquo) Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) entries forthose items assigned the selected keyword are displayed in the left-side framewhere the SOM map had originally appeared (see Figure 5)

The full records for all entries may be retrieved by clicking the lsquoFetch Ref-erencesrsquo button at the top of the listing in the left-side frame Upon selectionthe full records for will be concatenated in groups of five (5) records (default)in this same frame replacing the entry listing Alternatively the user may dis-play the full record for an entry (eg Abundances of light elements in metal-

92 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

poor stars I Atmospheric parameters and a new T_eff_ scale) by selecting itsassociated hyperlinked bibliographic code (eg lsquo1996AampA314191Grsquo)

A full record provides the standard bibliographic data and abstract as-signed keywords links to an associated lsquoCDS filersquo SIMBAD file and lsquofull pa-perrsquo if available as well as the corresponding record within the NASA ADSservice The ADS record offers access to the document full-text in a variety offormats when available as well as a separate link to the references in thesource documents In addition the ADS service provides links to a listing ofworks that cite the article associated with the displayed record to other docu-ments in the ADS database with lsquoSimilar Abstractsrsquo and to lsquoAlso-Read Arti-clesrsquo the set of articles displayed by users who also displayed the articlecurrently being viewed8

Gerry McKiernan 93

FIGURE 4 Screen print showing the base Astronomy amp Astrophysics SOMmap display (left side) The right frame displays a list of keywords retrieved af-ter selecting the lsquoStarsrsquo node (Node 103) (middle right) from the SOM map

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

construct appropriate Boolean statements by selecting the appropriate opera-tion (lsquoANDrsquo or lsquoORrsquo) in the search box panel (see Figure 2 bottom left) Con-cept label terms can also be combined with keywords within a query When thesearch button is clicked the search results are displayed in a separate browserand include the article title author(s) and volume and issue number (if as-signed) for each relevant document By clicking the hyperlinked phrase (lsquoFulltextrsquo) found as the last field for each entry in the results listing the associatedfull-text item is displayed (see Figure 3)5

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS SOM INDEX

Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg

The Centre de Donneacutees Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (cdswebu-strasbgfr) is ldquoan International Service under the Federation of Astronomical

Gerry McKiernan 91

FIGURE 3 The full text of articles and other items can be directly retrieved fromthe search results listing of a D-Lib Magazine Concept Space search

and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS)rdquo that ldquocollects homoge-nizes distributes and preserves astronomical informationrdquo The main CDS ser-vices are SIMBAD (simbadu-strasbgfrsim-fidpl) a reference database forthe identification and bibliography of astronomical objects outside the solarsystem VizieR (vizieru-strasbgfrviz-binVizieR) a search portal to astro-nomical catalogs published tables and other information sources and Aladin(aladinu-strasbgfraladingml) ldquoan interactive software sky atlas [that al-lows] the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the skyrdquo

CDS also maintains and distributes the Dictionary of Nomenclature of Ce-lestial Objects (vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binDic) AstroWeb Astronomy on theWeb (cdswebu-strasbgfrastrowebhtml) as well as StarPages AstronomyYellow Pages on the Web (cdswebu-strasbgfr~heckspageshtm) In addi-tion CDS hosts mirror copies of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)database (adswwwharvardedu) and provides access to the full-text of selectastronomical journals (eg Astrophysical Journal Astronomical Journal andPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and to the article ab-stracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics and its Supplement Series6

SOM Like It Hot

CDS is also actively involved in the development of bibliographic informa-tion retrieval tools notably visualized indexes to digital collections A premierexample of this tool is the lsquodocument maprsquo developed for Astronomy and Astro-physics (simbadu-strasbgfrA+Amappl) using the Kohonen Self OrganizingMap (SOM) technique The Kohonen SOM isan algorithm that automaticallyorganizes documents into a two-dimensional grid so that related documentsappear close to each other and general topics appear in well-defined areas TheSOM visualization is presented as a density map that graphically representspapers of similar content (see Figure 4 left frame)7 Presently the SOM mapfor Astronomy and Astrophysics indexes more than 10300 articles for the pe-riod 1994-2002

To use the interface and retrieve relevant articles users select an appropri-ate node (eg lsquoStarsrsquo) on the map in turn the keywords associated with thenode are listed in a right-side frame (see Figure 4) An entry indicating thenumber of documents containing any of these selected keywords is displayedabove the keyword listing in the frame (eg lsquoPrincipal Maps Node 103 6documentsrsquo) Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) entries forthose items assigned the selected keyword are displayed in the left-side framewhere the SOM map had originally appeared (see Figure 5)

The full records for all entries may be retrieved by clicking the lsquoFetch Ref-erencesrsquo button at the top of the listing in the left-side frame Upon selectionthe full records for will be concatenated in groups of five (5) records (default)in this same frame replacing the entry listing Alternatively the user may dis-play the full record for an entry (eg Abundances of light elements in metal-

92 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

poor stars I Atmospheric parameters and a new T_eff_ scale) by selecting itsassociated hyperlinked bibliographic code (eg lsquo1996AampA314191Grsquo)

A full record provides the standard bibliographic data and abstract as-signed keywords links to an associated lsquoCDS filersquo SIMBAD file and lsquofull pa-perrsquo if available as well as the corresponding record within the NASA ADSservice The ADS record offers access to the document full-text in a variety offormats when available as well as a separate link to the references in thesource documents In addition the ADS service provides links to a listing ofworks that cite the article associated with the displayed record to other docu-ments in the ADS database with lsquoSimilar Abstractsrsquo and to lsquoAlso-Read Arti-clesrsquo the set of articles displayed by users who also displayed the articlecurrently being viewed8

Gerry McKiernan 93

FIGURE 4 Screen print showing the base Astronomy amp Astrophysics SOMmap display (left side) The right frame displays a list of keywords retrieved af-ter selecting the lsquoStarsrsquo node (Node 103) (middle right) from the SOM map

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS)rdquo that ldquocollects homoge-nizes distributes and preserves astronomical informationrdquo The main CDS ser-vices are SIMBAD (simbadu-strasbgfrsim-fidpl) a reference database forthe identification and bibliography of astronomical objects outside the solarsystem VizieR (vizieru-strasbgfrviz-binVizieR) a search portal to astro-nomical catalogs published tables and other information sources and Aladin(aladinu-strasbgfraladingml) ldquoan interactive software sky atlas [that al-lows] the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the skyrdquo

CDS also maintains and distributes the Dictionary of Nomenclature of Ce-lestial Objects (vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binDic) AstroWeb Astronomy on theWeb (cdswebu-strasbgfrastrowebhtml) as well as StarPages AstronomyYellow Pages on the Web (cdswebu-strasbgfr~heckspageshtm) In addi-tion CDS hosts mirror copies of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)database (adswwwharvardedu) and provides access to the full-text of selectastronomical journals (eg Astrophysical Journal Astronomical Journal andPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and to the article ab-stracts for Astronomy and Astrophysics and its Supplement Series6

SOM Like It Hot

CDS is also actively involved in the development of bibliographic informa-tion retrieval tools notably visualized indexes to digital collections A premierexample of this tool is the lsquodocument maprsquo developed for Astronomy and Astro-physics (simbadu-strasbgfrA+Amappl) using the Kohonen Self OrganizingMap (SOM) technique The Kohonen SOM isan algorithm that automaticallyorganizes documents into a two-dimensional grid so that related documentsappear close to each other and general topics appear in well-defined areas TheSOM visualization is presented as a density map that graphically representspapers of similar content (see Figure 4 left frame)7 Presently the SOM mapfor Astronomy and Astrophysics indexes more than 10300 articles for the pe-riod 1994-2002

To use the interface and retrieve relevant articles users select an appropri-ate node (eg lsquoStarsrsquo) on the map in turn the keywords associated with thenode are listed in a right-side frame (see Figure 4) An entry indicating thenumber of documents containing any of these selected keywords is displayedabove the keyword listing in the frame (eg lsquoPrincipal Maps Node 103 6documentsrsquo) Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) entries forthose items assigned the selected keyword are displayed in the left-side framewhere the SOM map had originally appeared (see Figure 5)

The full records for all entries may be retrieved by clicking the lsquoFetch Ref-erencesrsquo button at the top of the listing in the left-side frame Upon selectionthe full records for will be concatenated in groups of five (5) records (default)in this same frame replacing the entry listing Alternatively the user may dis-play the full record for an entry (eg Abundances of light elements in metal-

92 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

poor stars I Atmospheric parameters and a new T_eff_ scale) by selecting itsassociated hyperlinked bibliographic code (eg lsquo1996AampA314191Grsquo)

A full record provides the standard bibliographic data and abstract as-signed keywords links to an associated lsquoCDS filersquo SIMBAD file and lsquofull pa-perrsquo if available as well as the corresponding record within the NASA ADSservice The ADS record offers access to the document full-text in a variety offormats when available as well as a separate link to the references in thesource documents In addition the ADS service provides links to a listing ofworks that cite the article associated with the displayed record to other docu-ments in the ADS database with lsquoSimilar Abstractsrsquo and to lsquoAlso-Read Arti-clesrsquo the set of articles displayed by users who also displayed the articlecurrently being viewed8

Gerry McKiernan 93

FIGURE 4 Screen print showing the base Astronomy amp Astrophysics SOMmap display (left side) The right frame displays a list of keywords retrieved af-ter selecting the lsquoStarsrsquo node (Node 103) (middle right) from the SOM map

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

poor stars I Atmospheric parameters and a new T_eff_ scale) by selecting itsassociated hyperlinked bibliographic code (eg lsquo1996AampA314191Grsquo)

A full record provides the standard bibliographic data and abstract as-signed keywords links to an associated lsquoCDS filersquo SIMBAD file and lsquofull pa-perrsquo if available as well as the corresponding record within the NASA ADSservice The ADS record offers access to the document full-text in a variety offormats when available as well as a separate link to the references in thesource documents In addition the ADS service provides links to a listing ofworks that cite the article associated with the displayed record to other docu-ments in the ADS database with lsquoSimilar Abstractsrsquo and to lsquoAlso-Read Arti-clesrsquo the set of articles displayed by users who also displayed the articlecurrently being viewed8

Gerry McKiernan 93

FIGURE 4 Screen print showing the base Astronomy amp Astrophysics SOMmap display (left side) The right frame displays a list of keywords retrieved af-ter selecting the lsquoStarsrsquo node (Node 103) (middle right) from the SOM map

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

If more than 30 articles are associated with a particular node the user mayrequest that a detailed SOM map for this cluster be generated (lsquoConstruct a lo-cal maprsquo) From within a newly displayed local map the user can then focus onone (or more) of the aspects of this particular grouping Individuals may alsoidentify and select relevant standardized terms or phrases using a lsquokeywordqueryrsquo option A listing of matching selected terms and phrases are listed in aright-side frame after the query is executed Upon selecting an appropriatephrase an associated SOM is created in the left-side frame with identical dis-play or retrieval options as found in the principal SOM

A Kohonen SOM document map has also been created for AstrophysicalJournal (simbadu-strasbgfrApJmappl) and the VizieR catalog service(vizieru-strasbgfrcgi-binVizieR)9 10

94 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 5 Upon retrieving the search results (lsquoGet Documentsrsquo) (see Figure 4right frame) relevant entries for a selected keyword are displayed in the left-side frame where the SOM map had originally appeared

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Institute of Physics Electronic Journals

The Institute of Physics (IOP) (wwwioporg) is ldquoan international learned so-ciety and professional body for the advancement and dissemination of physicspure and applied and promotion of physics educationrdquo Founded in 1874 IOP isbased in London with offices and branches throughout the world Today it hasmore than 30000 members worldwide A wholly owned company Institute ofPhysics Publishing (IOPP) is ldquoa leading international publisher of journalsbooks and magazines in physics and a world leader in electronic publishingrdquo11

Currently IOPP publishes or provides access to more than three-dozenscholarly electronic journals in physics and other scientific disciplines Avail-able titles presently include

bull Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Generalbull Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physicsbull Journal of Physics Condensed Matterbull Journal of Physics D Applied Physicsbull Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physicsbull New Journal of Physics

as well as among others

bull Chinese Physicsbull Classical and Quantum Gravitybull Combustion Theory and Modellingbull Journal of High Energy Physicsbull Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineeringbull Journal of Turbulencebull Measurement Science and Technologybull Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineeringbull Nanotechnologybull Network Computation in Neural Systemsbull Physics in Medicine and Biologybull Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusionbull Semiconductor Science and Technologybull Smart Materials and Structuresbull Superconductor Science and Technology

12

Searching Searching Searching

The IOP e-journal collection can be searched in combination or individu-ally by title abstract author or affiliation or by exact phrase All journals canbe searched concurrently (default) or the user can select one or more specificjournals from an alphabetized list Alternatively users can select and search a

Gerry McKiernan 95

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

journal from a categorized list (eg lsquoCondensed Matter and Materials Sci-encersquo lsquoApplied Physicsrsquo or lsquoComputer Sciencersquo) or choose to search one oftwo IOPP lsquoEJs Collectionsrsquo IOP Physics Reviews or BEC Matters The formercollection ldquobrings together review articles published in IOPrsquos journals includ-ing topical reviews and reviews from the Institutersquos dedicated review journalndashReports on Progress in Physicsrdquo13 while the latter is ldquoa special service for theBose-Einstein condensation and matter wave communityrdquo14

Individuals may choose to search all available years (Jan 1946 to present) ora particular annual period (eg lsquoJan 2000rsquo to lsquoDec 2002rsquo) by selecting the de-sired month-year from a drop-down menu Currently IOP is actively engaged ina project to digitize its entire journal archive retrospectively to 187415

Viviacutesimo

Results from a journal search may be displayed in a lsquosummary formatrsquo or anlsquoabstract formatrsquo The former provides a citation format for list of relevant re-cords with links to the abstract references and the full text in PDF or HTMLformat while the latter includes the elements found in the summary format andan associated abstract As a default entries for either format are displayed bydate in reverse chronological order (lsquonaturalrsquo) (most recent first) in groups often records Users may initially display or subsequently redisplay records ingroups of 25 50 or 100 records andor sort (or resort) records by author affili-ation or relevance Records can also be sorted in strict chronological order(lsquoreversersquo) (most recent last)

Alternatively users may initially (or subsequently) cluster search results bythe topics and subtopics found within the titles and abstracts of a retrieved setClustering is a technique that groups documents based on similarity Withinthe IOP e-journal collection clustering is available for searches that generatemore than 25 records and currently a maximum of 250 records can be clus-tered The results that are clustered will depend on the sort options selected forthe initial search (ie lsquoDatersquo lsquoAuthorrsquo lsquoAffiliationrsquo or lsquoRelevancersquo)16

Clustered results are grouped by appropriate topic (eg lsquothin filmsrsquo opticalfibrersquo lsquononlinear opticalrsquo etc) and by ldquothe overall rank of the individualsearch results in the search enginersquos outputrdquo The user can narrow a searchwithin a cluster by expanding the cluster and selecting a subcluster Those re-cords with which a cluster or subcluster is associated will be displayed to theright of the cluster tree (see Figure 6)

To generate its clusters IOP has selected Viviacutesimo Clustering Enginetrade(vivisimocom) a technology that ldquouses sophisticated algorithms to cluster ar-ticles into meaningful topic categories based on the words appearing in the ab-stract and titlerdquo in this application the full-text of an article is not processedThe Viviacutesimo engine does not employ a pre-defined taxonomy or controlledvocabulary as a result the topic names for clusters and subtopics are generateddirectly from the search results17

96 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Viviacutesimo was founded in June 2000 by research computer scientists affili-ated with the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Pennsylvania where related research was originally conductedwith support from the National Science Foundation18

HIGHWIRE PRESSreg

ldquoIn the Beginning rdquo

HighWire Pressreg (highwirestanfordedu) is ldquoan enterprise unit of StanfordUniversity Libraries and Academic Information Resources [that is commit-

Gerry McKiernan 97

FIGURE 6 In the cluster display option in the Institute of Physics (IOP) electronicjournal collection the user can lsquonarrowrsquo a search within a cluster by expandingthe cluster and selecting a subcluster Those records with which a subcluster (orcluster) is associated will be displayed to the right of the cluster tree

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

ted to] charting new waters as [a co-publisher] of low-cost graphically richInternet editions of university and scholarly society e-journals [It] workswith [scholarly societies and responsible publishers] to publish distributeand archive e-journals providing a common user interface to its titlesand hyperlinks to [relevant] Web sources The [overall] goal of High-Wire Press is to lsquoreturn responsibility for scholarly publishing to thosecommitted to the primacy of scholarly communication rather than profittakingrsquo rdquo19

Its first online journal was the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)which was made available in late May 1995 JBC was followed by Sci-ence the journal of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience (AAAS) and subsequently by the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America20 Today HighWirePress hosts more than 340 electronic journals in the biological medicaland physical sciences as well journals in select fields of the social sci-ences21 22 More than a dozen additional titles are scheduled to becomeavailable in 200323

The growing list of HighWire Press collaborating publishers and their se-lect publications includes

bull American Medical Associationbull Archives of Family Medicinebull Archives of Internal Medicinebull JAMAndashThe Journal of the American Medical Association

bull American Society for Microbiologybull Applied and Environmental Microbiologybull Journal of Bacteriologybull Molecular and Cellular Biology

bull British Medical Journal (BMJ) Publishing Groupbull Gutbull Heartbull Thorax

bull Company of Biologistsbull Developmentbull Journal of Cell Sciencebull Journal of Experimental Biology

bull Endocrine Societybull Endocrine Reviewsbull Endocrinologybull Journal of Clinical Endocrinology amp Metabolism

bull Lippincott Williams amp Wilkinsbull Circulationbull Hypertensionbull Stroke

98 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Oxford University Pressbull Annals of Botanybull The EMBO Journalbull Journal of Heredity24

HighWire Press also currently provides ldquothe largest archive of free life sci-ence articles in the worldrdquo offering access to nearly 440000 full-text articleswithout charge adding nearly 3000 items each month25

Eclectic Journals

HighWire Press was founded to ensure that its publishing partners lead thetransition to the use of new technologies for scientific communication As amajor innovator in scholarly publishing HighWire Press does not howeversimply ldquomount electronic images of printed pages rather by adding linksamong authors articles and citations [and offering] advanced searchingcapabilities high-resolution images and multimedia and interactivityrdquo itsldquoelectronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided inthe printed journalsrdquo26

Indeed as stated in its original prospectus in June 1995 one of the key mis-sions of the proposed ldquoNetworked Publishing project dubbed ldquoThe HighWirePressrsquordquo was to ldquouse innovative network tools for capture publishing retrievalreading and presentationrdquo27

Browse Articles by Topic

To assist users in identifying potentially relevant articles on a particular sub-ject HighWire Press has organized all e-journal titles by broad (eg lsquoBiologicalSciencesrsquo lsquoMedical Sciencesrsquo lsquoPhysical Sciencesrsquo and lsquoSocial Sciencesrsquo) andgeneral topics (eg lsquoBiological Sciencesrsquo lsquoAgriculturersquo lsquoBiochemistryrsquolsquoCell Biologyrsquo etc) In selecting a specific general topic (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo)the associated general subtopics are subsequently displayed (eg lsquoCell Physi-ologyrsquo lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) with an in-dication of the number of associated articles for each (eg lsquoCell Physiology(515871)rsquo) In addition a ranked listing of journals that publish on a generaltopic is also provided

From within a general topic users can subsequently display articles that arecategorized under specific subtopics (eg lsquoCell Physiologyrsquo lsquoCellular Struc-turesrsquo lsquoCellular Typesrsquo lsquoSystems Biologyrsquo) by selecting a hyperlinked subtopicof interest Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo) (see Figure 7) In selecting a specific subtopic a list of records forrelevant articles (or Medline abstracts) is displayed in relevancy order Amongvarious options users can select items from the listing and display these with

Gerry McKiernan 99

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

abstracts or choose to export records for use in bibliographic software pack-ages (lsquoDownload to citation managerrsquo) For subscribed and free journals read-ers can display the full-text for an entry in PDF or HTML format whereavailable (see Figure 7)

The topics and subtopics for HighWire Press articles have been assigned us-ing the Semio automated categorization software technology provided byEntrieva (wwwentrievacom) a ldquoleading provider of information categoriza-tion solutionsrdquo28

TopicMap

Within HighWire Press users may also browse specific topics or subtopicsby using a TopicMap a special Java applet designed to display standardizedtopics and subtopics in a graphical form that provides a ldquosense of contextrdquo

100 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 7 Within HighWire articles are also categorized to a very high degreeof specificity (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gt Mitogens gt MitogenicPathwayrsquo)

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

while navigating a large tree-structured database As of December 31 2002there were more than 30400 established topics and subtopics (see Figure 8)

TopicMap is based on the Star Tree SDK for Java licensed from InxightSoftware Inc (wwwinxightcom)29 Inxight was established in 1996 byXerox Corporation as part of the Xerox New Enterprises initiative ldquo to capi-talize on breakthrough user interface linguistic and information access tech-nologies invented and developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center(PARC) and the Xerox Research Center Europerdquo30

When TopicMap is launched it appears in a separate window A left clickof a topic node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will reposition it to the center of theTopicMap display (see Figure 9) a left click-and-drag allows the user tochange the specific location of a node and its associated subtopics31 A doubleleft-click on a topic node will display the associated categories or records inthe original window32

Gerry McKiernan 101

FIGURE 8 Users can also browse general topics and lower level subtopics us-ing TopicMap a special graphical Java applet

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

The TopicMap can also be searched and subsequently browsed for the oc-currence of broad or narrow topics by entering a candidate term or phrase (eglsquoCell Biologyrsquo) subtopic (eg lsquoCellular Structuresrsquo) or a subtopic at lowerlevels in the topic hierarchy (eg Mitogens Mitogenic Pathway) in a searchbox (lsquoSearch for Topicsrsquo) located beneath the hyperbolic tree display (see Fig-ures 8 and 9)

Citation Map

In select cases search results entries will include other or alternative dis-play options (eg lsquoAbstractrsquo lsquoFree Summaryrsquo lsquoextra Supplemental Datarsquoand lsquoCitation Maprsquo) among others The latter display option a Citation Map isldquoa graphical representation of the articles citing or cited by [a] selected arti-

102 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 9 A left click of a TopicMap node (eg lsquoCell Biologyrsquo) will repositionthe topic to the center of the TopicMap display

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

clerdquo (see Figure 10) and is ldquobased on the references found in the full text arti-cles of the HighWire-hosted journalsrdquo33

[G]iven a starting reference Citation Map finds all articles related by ci-tations either citing the article or cited by the article The result set is ex-panded outward from the starting article to make a collection of all thearticles related by citation to the starting article By noting the number oftimes each article in the collection is cited the related papers with thegreatest impact are graphed along with the citingcited-by relationsamong the articles in the collection This shows the most importantpapers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquorelationships between these articles34

A listing of the cited articles (and citing articles where available) from theCitation Map will be displayed beneath the map in order by the most fre-quently cited with the identical display configuration and retrieval optionspreviously noted for search andor browse results

Gerry McKiernan 103

FIGURE 10 The Citation Map is a graphical representation that depicts ldquothemost important papers related to a starting article as well as temporal and lsquoline-of-citersquo relationships between these articlesrdquo

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Topic-Search from Individual Search Results

In a recently introduced enhancement individual records retrieved from asearch display the subtopics assigned to an article For any or all records a usercan select any subtopic (lsquoANY checked topicsrsquo) or all subtopics (lsquoALLchecked topicsrsquo) and subsequently execute a search (lsquoSearch for articlesmatching checked topicsrsquo) (see Figure 11 right side)

Clustering

To facilitate the identification of the specific subject content of search re-sults HighWire Press also recently introduced a functionality that permitsusers to manipulate an lsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the search results (see Figure 12 tophalf) After an initial results display the user can display a ranked list of sub-ject content for the retrieved search results subset From this categorized list

104 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 11 A recently introduced HighWire Press enhancement enables auser to select any or all subtopics to an article from within retrieved results andthen execute a new search on the selected subtopics

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

the user can display those records associated with the specific subject content(eg lsquoInfants Pediatricsrsquo) (see Figure 13) and subsequently retrieve the full-text where available for items of interest Clustering is available forsearches with a minimum of 50 results and will be applied to a maximum ofthe first 500 records35 Content categorization is a specific implementationof Viviacutesimo (vivisimocom) the document clustering technology also uti-lized by the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) for its e-journal search re-sults (qv)

Keyword-in-Context (KWIC)

To assist users in evaluating the potential relevancy of results of an Internetsearch engine query it has become common practice for many services to onlynot highlight the search terms (or phrases) in a results list but to include thetextual context(s) of the term or phrase with the results entry as well Recog-

Gerry McKiernan 105

FIGURE 12 A recently introduced HighWire Press functionality provides anlsquoInstant Indexrsquo of the specific subject content of search results

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

nizing the inherent benefit that context offers in the information seeking pro-cess HighWire Press recently incorporated a keyword-in-context feature

In addition to TopicMap Citation Map clustering and other current and re-cently introduced features HighWire Press plans to make available several ad-ditional innovative search browse and display functionalities

Browse Journals by Topic and Link to Articles from Ranked Journals

As previously noted HighWire Press users can currently browse articlesusing a linear topic hierarchy (eg lsquoCell Biology gt Cellular Structures gtMitogens gt Mitogenic Pathwayrsquo) In a forthcoming enhancement readers alsowill be able to browse journal titles by subtopic within a topic hierarchy usingthe identical linear topical pathways available for articles By default journaltitles in such displays are listed in descending order by lsquofocusrsquo In this contextlsquofocusrsquo is defined as the ldquoemphasis or proportion by the intensity of a journalon the topic relative to other journals rdquo Alternatively users may display alisting of journals for a specific topic or subtopic by number of articles that ajournal has published on a selected subject (lsquofrequencyrsquo) or in alphabetical or-

106 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 13 From the lsquoInstant Indexrsquo the user can select from a ranked listing(left side) and subsequently display associated records (right side)

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

der by journal title From any of these displays users are able to browse arti-cles within a journal by a topic (or subtopic) by selecting a hyperlinked option(lsquoBrowse articles on this topicrsquo)

MatchMaker

To further facilitate the identification of articles on a subject HighWire Presswill soon offer a MatchMaker service for author or keyword searches providinga matching set of articles based on a weighted set of subtopics From a startingcitation or result set MatchMaker extracts a pattern of relevant subtopics anddisplays these as a series of horizontal bar charts in a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Pat-ternrsquo (see Figure 14) If desired the user can reduce the relative weight on asubtopic by clicking on one or more of the bars or increase the weight by click-ing on the space to the right of a bar A search can then be executed using themodified pattern (lsquomatch on changed MatchMaker patternrsquo) Articles that bestmatch an original or revised pattern are listed in relevancy order

Gerry McKiernan 107

FIGURE 14 In a lsquoMatchMaker Topic Patternrsquo the relative weight of subtopics isdisplayed as a series of horizontal bars

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY

London Business School

Founded in 1965 the London Business School (LSB) (wwwlondonedu) isldquoone of the pre-eminent international business schools consistently rankedin the top ten of world business schoolsrdquo It employs more than 90 world-re-nowned faculty and enrolls more than 1000 graduate students and 4500 exec-utive education participants each year Its library offers users a wide range ofspecialized as well as general print and electronic resources including morethan 20000 books 60 electronic databases 1000 serial titles internationaland historic annual reports market research reports and more than 8000working papers from 32 institutions36

In addition to a Web-based online catalog the London Business School li-brary provides access to a number of major electronic resources most notably

bull Butterworths Accountancy Direct (online accounting reference resource)bull EconLit (economics and finance bibliographic database)bull Factiva (multilingual content covering nearly 8000 sources including

Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires and The Wall Street Journal)bull IDEAL Online Library (electronic journals from Academic Press and

other publishers)bull Hooverrsquos Online (company industry and market intelligence database)bull Investext Plus (investment research reports)bull JSTOR (science social science and arts and humanities electronic jour-

nals)bull ProQuestDirect (abstract and index database of business and manage-

ment journals with full-text)bull PsycARTICLES (full-text of American Psychological Association jour-

nals) andbull ScoRe (a national catalogue of company reports in British libraries)

Material in the London Business School library is organized according tothe London Classification of Business Studies (LCBS) a specialized classifi-cation scheme and thesaurus for the business literature and resources used by anumber of British and international business schools corporate libraries andinformation centers Aslib published the second edition of LCBS in 1979 Sub-sequently the classification and thesaurus has been updated and amended bythe London Business School with the most recent version published in July2001 A Web version of the classification and thesaurus is available as Con-cept Space a graphical representation with associated links to organized col-lections of global and institutional electronic resources37

108 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Concept Space

Concept Space (conceptspacelondonedu) is a visual search tool for busi-ness concepts linked to a variety of select information resources made avail-able to LSB-affiliated staff and students Within Concept Space users canexplore relationships between business terms phrases and concepts (see Fig-ure 15) and directly link to a range of sources While a text version is alsoavailable the graphic version of Concept Space is ldquodynamicrdquo and ldquois best fordisplaying the relationships between conceptsrdquo

After selecting a major concept (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) from theinitial graphics screen the user can subsequently explore ldquothe relationship ofthe selected term to other terms in the same subject areardquo The nature of theserelationships is depicted by the color and distance of a colored sphere from thecentral concept The term andor phrases relationships are coded as follows(see Figure 15)

Gerry McKiernan 109

FIGURE 15 Within Concept Space users can explore relationships betweenbusiness terms phrases and concepts using a graphical interface

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bull Main term (eg lsquoThe Enterprisersquo) in RedBy clicking on a selected major term additional details about the termcan be displayed These include notes on the use of the term its syn-onyms and its class mark in the London Business School Library

bull Broader terms (eg lsquoMathematics and Statisticsrsquo) in GreenTerms shown in the color green are more general terms in the subjecthierarchy One can view the wider context of a term by clicking on it

bull Narrower terms (eg lsquoIndustrial relationsrsquo) in BlueTerms shown in blue are more specific terms or sub-categories in thesubject hierarchy

bull Related terms (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) in PurpleTerms shown in purple are other subject terms of potential interest

bull Highlighted terms (eg lsquoEntrepreneursrsquo) in Yellow

In selecting a term or phrase for focus (eg lsquoOperations managementrsquo) theuser is presented with a new window (see Figure 16) in which a series of re-lated concepts are presented From within this screen the user may select a nar-rower term (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) and browse its associated concepts orexecute a search within one or more groups of electronic LSB library resourcesfor the initial concept By clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its asso-ciated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (see Fig-ure 16) the user is presented with categories of relevant information resources(ie lsquoBusiness booksrsquo lsquoBusiness articlesrsquo lsquoAcademicrsquo lsquoCompanies and com-petitorsrsquo lsquoFind out morersquo) (see Figure 17) In selecting a specific resource(eg lsquoNBER Working Papersrsquo from the lsquoAcademicrsquo category) the source issearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept (eg lsquoProduction methodsrsquo) (see Figure 18)

Concept Space is an interface to a subset of electronic resources from theLondon School of Business In addition due to licensing requirements ac-cess to certain resources may be limited to staff and students ConceptSpace was developed for London Business School Library by TLA Ltd(wwwtlawebnet a Web technology and content developer)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Utrecht University

Established in 1636 Utrecht University is one of the oldest universities inEurope recently commemorating the 365th anniversary of its founding It cur-rently offers the widest range of courses of any university in the Netherlandswith more than 14 faculties and 70 degree courses38 Current faculties includeArts Biology Geographic Sciences Mathematics and Computer SciencePhilosophy and the Social Sciences In addition there are the faculties of

110 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

Medicine Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine39 In 2001 ithad an enrollment of more than 22400 students with more than 3100 enrolledin the Faculty of Medicine alone and nearly 5000 enrolled in the Sciences40

In addition to its print collection the Utrecht University Library offers itsfaculty staff and students access to a wide variety of electronic informationsources that include bibliographic and abstract databases (eg MedlineNursing and Allied Health PsycINFO) select Internet sites full-text doctoraldissertations and e-journals41

Gerry McKiernan 111

FIGURE 16 In selecting a term or phrase for focus in Concept Space (eglsquoOperations Managementrsquo) the user is presented with a new window in which aseries of related concepts are presented From within this screen the user mayselect a narrower term and browse its associated concepts or execute asearch within one or more groups of electronic London School of Business li-brary resources for the initial concept (lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo)

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

To demonstrate enhanced access to select electronic resources offered byUtecht University MediaLab (wwwmedialabnl) a Dutch firm specializing inlsquoknowledge miningrsquo and creation of lsquointelligentrsquo Intranet and Internet sites42

has applied its AquaBrowser technology to select electronic medical informa-tion resources made available by the university library

AquaBrowser

The AquaBrowser is ldquoa software tool that presents large amounts of informa-tion from different sources in a playful and exciting mannerrdquo The AquaBrowser

112 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 17 After clicking the lsquoSearch related sitesrsquo hotlink (or its associ-ated globe-like icon) located within the left-side frame of the screen (seeFigure 16) the user is presented with categorized lists of information tar-gets from which a search on a selected concept can be executed (rightframe)

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

enriches a query (eg lsquopancakersquo) by linking to related terms (eg lsquocrepersquolsquopizzarsquo lsquopitarsquo) by providing context (eg lsquobreakfastrsquo lsquobirthdayrsquo lsquosyruprsquo) andoffering direct relations (eg lsquoflourrsquo lsquobutterrsquo lsquobatterrsquo) that may lead to ldquosurpris-ing discoveriesrdquo (eg lsquocaviarrsquo)43

There are several components to the AquaBrowser system including vari-ous tools that gather analyze and create linkages from a range of electronicsources (eg databases Web sites CD-ROMs etc) lsquoLiquid Filtersrsquo extractsinformation from various sources and transfers it to the lsquoLiquid KnowledgeBuilderrsquo The source material itself is cached in the lsquoIGORrsquo database (see be-low) The knowledge builder analyses all the information extracted by the fil-ters An integrated dictionary is utilized in the analysis which can be enhanced

Gerry McKiernan 113

FIGURE 18 After selecting a specific target the source is automaticallysearched using the term or phrase associated with the particular selected con-cept and the results subsequently displayed in the right-side frame

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

by the incorporation of a subject thesaurus Subsequently mathematical mod-els are created based in part on the frequency and clustering of terms44

IGOR is the AquaBrowserrsquos lsquoblack boxrsquo Among its components andfunctionalities are

bull a freetext search engine (a searchable index of all the words in a corpus)bull rankers (rankers provide lsquofuzzyrsquo answers to specific questions)bull a co-occurrence generator (this generator analyses texts from source da-

tabases and creates statistical and semantic relations between constituentterms and phrases)

bull a translation unit (the translation component provides automatic transla-tions of queries and keywords into lsquoother languages specific jargon ar-chaic dialects or technical phrasesrsquo)

bull a fuzzy alternative generator (this generator creates correct and incorrectvariations of terms and phrases)

bull stemmers (stemmers isolate the semantic stem of a term facilitating asearch for synonyms and variants)45

The lsquoLiquid Context Builderrsquo is the systemrsquos lsquotop layerrsquo that ldquoenriches theuserrsquos queries and keep track of all the steps in the search [process]rdquo In addi-tion the context builder produces the list of results and the lsquocloud of associa-tionsrsquo that lead ldquothe way to more relevant information along different routesrdquoUpon execution of a search the lsquocloud of associationsrsquo (see Figure 19 rightside) and portions of the records (see Figure 19 left side) are displayed in theAquaBrowser46

The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of search results andassociationsrsquordquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow the lsquocloud of as-sociationsrsquordquo generated initially from target sources or from a specific query (eglsquohypertensionrsquo)47 (see Figure 19) The lsquocloud of associationsrsquo contains associa-tions as well as synonyms translations spelling variations and typographical er-rors Upon selecting an entry from results listing displayed in a left-side frame theassociated document is displayed in a right-hand frame (see Figure 20)

Among its many other applications AquaBrower has been applied as an inter-face to online public catalogs namely that of the Netherlands Association of Pub-lic Libraries (NBLC) (zoekenbibliotheeknlindexhtml) and in the eLibraryHub(aquaelibraryhubcom) of the National Library Board (NLSB) of Singapore48

CONCEPTUAL ACCESS

In an effort to enhance access and use of their respective collections a selectnumber of e-journals have begun to offer novel search retrieval and displayalternatives that employ emerging and experimental information technologiesIn some collections users are able to browse detailed linear hierarchies (eg

114 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

HighWire Press) or expand folders in which content has been automaticallycategorized (eg Institute of Physics Electronic Journals) In others they candynamically interact with two-dimensional visualizations of content to ex-plore topics and their associated articles or other information resources (egAstronomy and Astrophysics SOM Index AquaBrowser Concept Space D-Lib Magazine index HighWire Press) Each of these broad approaches notonly provides enhanced subject access to their respective collections but moreimportantly offer higher levels of access that are paradoxically advanced yetintuitive Such conceptual access enables users to perform not only standardsubject searching and browsing but more significantly allows them to dy-namically navigate the semantic space of related or associated terms andphrases for a given subject a feature and functionality unavailable in printjournals and uncommon in most digital collections

Gerry McKiernan 115

FIGURE 19 The AquaBrowser interface offers a ldquographical depiction of searchresults and associationsrdquo that allow the user to search browse and ldquofollow thelsquocloud of associationsrsquo generated initially from target sources or from a specificquery (eg lsquohypertensionrsquo)rdquo

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

ldquoA PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSrdquo

Visual Interfaces

The first International Workshop on ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital Librariesrdquowas held on June 28 2001 in Roanoke Virginia at the inaugural ACMIEEEJoint Conference on Digital Libraries This one-day workshop attracted an in-ternational audience of 37 researchers practitioners and graduate studentswith interests in information visualization digital libraries human-computerinteraction library and information science computer science and geography

116 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 20 In AquaBrowser upon selecting an item from the search resultsdisplayed in a left-side frame (eg lsquoeBMJndashRamsay et al 319 (7210)630rsquo) theassociated full text document is displayed in a right-hand frame

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

The primary aim of the workshop was to raise awareness of several intercon-nected fields of research related to the design and use of visual interfaces fordigital libraries49As noted in a workshop report good visualizations can

bull reduce visual research timebull provide a better understanding of complex data setsbull reveal otherwise unnoticed relationshipsbull offer multiple perspectives on datasets andbull convey information effectively50

Information Visualization

Information visualization may be defined as ldquothe use of computer-sup-ported interactive visual representation of abstract data to amplify cognitionIts purpose is not the pictures themselves but insight Information visual-ization is part of the new media made possible by the development of the real-time visual computerrdquo51 Such a medium can potentially expedite the searchfor information enhance the recognition of patterns and enable the use ofldquoperceptual inference and perceptual monitoringrdquo In addition the medium it-self can facilitate information interaction and manipulation52 Succinctlystated ldquoinformation visualization is a highly efficient way for the mind to di-rectly perceive data and discover knowledge and insight from itrdquo53

SPIREtrade

One of the major research centers in the United States involved with the de-velopment and application of information visualization technologies is the Pa-cific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) based in Richland WashingtonAmong its notable projects is SPIREtradendashthe Spatial Paradigm for Informationand Exploration a suite of information visualization tools intended to help us-ers ldquoexplore a large number of textual documents with an intuitive spatial met-aphorrdquo54 Of the varied SPIRE technologies (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehtml) Galaxies and ThemeViewtrade are particularly noteworthy55

The Galaxies visualization (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_galaxieshtml) ldquouses the image of stars in the night sky to repre-sent a set of documents [In this presentation] [e]ach document is representedby a single lsquodocustarrsquo [Documents that are closely related] cluster togetherwhile unrelated documents are separated by large distances [In Galaxies][s]everal analytical tools are provided [that] allow users to investigate document groupings query the document contents and investigate time-basedtrendsrdquo (see Figure 21)56

In the ThemeViewtrade visualization (formerly ThemeScapetrade) (wwwpnlgovinfovizspirespirehelppagesvisualizations_themeviewhtml) ldquothe top-ics or themes within a set of documents are shown as a relief map of natural ter-

Gerry McKiernan 117

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

rain The mountains in the ThemeView indicate dominant themes The heightof the peaks indicates the relative strengths of the topics in the document setSimilar themes appear close together while unrelated themes are separated bylarger distances ThemeView provides a visual overview of the major topicscontained in a set of documentsrdquo (see Figure 22)57 Concisely described aThemeView visualization is

a 3-D feature map that shows where major concepts and themes are lo-cated in [a] database Through a simple image ThemeView visual-izations can summarize the contents of an entire database identify wheremajor concepts are located and detail the interrelationships betweenthem Combined with the thematic query tool a ThemeView display be-comes both a visual and interactive approach to exploring database con-tents58

118 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

FIGURE 21 A Galaxies visualization of more than a half-million cancer litera-ture abstracts

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Although only a select number of electronic journal collections currentlyoffer innovative and novel interfaces one can expect that such enhancementswill soon become commonplace as digital collections become larger and morecomplex and the need for advanced navigation features and functionalities be-comes more widely recognized Likewise as computer processing and com-munication technologies continue to improve one can predict that two-dimensional visualized e-journal interfaces in time will be superseded bythree-dimensional interfaces such as those offered by ThemeView and similartechnologies59 60 61 62 63

One could envision for example the next-generation HighWire PressTopicMap as a TopicLandscape In such a ThemeView transformation broadand general topics and lower-level subtopics would be presented as labeledpeaks plateaus and valleys permitting a user to readily identify and navigate

Gerry McKiernan 119

FIGURE 22 A ThemeView visualization depicting major and minor themesand topics and their relationships as peaks plateaus and valleys within a sam-ple document corpus

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

the dominant and subordinate themes for an entire digital corpus or one of itssectors Within this digital landscape a user could easily browse related topicsor directly retrieve documents of interest at any level As an adjunct or sepa-rately a Citation Galaxy or Citation ContourMap would permit the user tonavigate key and related citations for a specific topic in two or three dimen-sions and then subsequently display the associated full-text articles within aright-hand frame or a separate window While such functionalities and fea-tures are not currently offered by HighWire Press or other e-journal vendorsit is not unreasonable to believe that such New Age Navigation could emergeas the next-generation interface for e-collections in the not-too-distant future

NOTES

The author is most grateful to the following organizations and individuals for per-mission to reproduce selected screen prints from their respective Web sites

bull Figures 1 and 2 Javed Mostafa Victor H Yngve Associate Professor of Infor-mation Science and Associate Professor of Informatics Indiana UniversityBloomington

bull Figure 3 D-Lib Magazine and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives(CNRI)

bull Figures 4 and 5 Soizick Lesteven Computer Engineer Centre de DonneacuteesAstronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) (Images copyright CDS)

bull Figure 6 Lucy Pearce Senior Product Manager Institute of Physics Publishingbull Figures 7 through 14 John Sack Director HighWire Pressreg Stanford Universitybull Figures 15 through 18 Helen Edwards Head of Information Services London

School of Business Librarybull Figures 19 and 20 Yangkie Kwee Project Manager MediaLab BV the Nether-

landsbull Figures 21 and 22 Copied from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL) Web site (httpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologieshtml) PNNL is oneof nine national laboratories supported by the US Department of Energy and isoperated by Battelle Memorial Institute

The author is particularly grateful to his colleague Jim Cole Iowa State UniversityLibrary for suggesting the theme of this article as a topic of investigation

REFERENCES

1 Eliot The Rock A Pageant Play Written for Performance at Sadlerrsquos Wells Thea-tre 28 May-9 June 1934 on Behalf of the Forty-five Churches Fund of the Diocese ofLondon Book of Words (London Faber and Faber1934) verse 1 lines 15-16 Alsoavailable at lthttpwwwcofcedu~betwillLib105TSEliothtmlgt (December 282002)

2 Amy Friedlander ldquoFrom the Editor A Word (or Two) of Welcomerdquo D-LibMagazine (July 1995) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibJuly9507editorialhtmlgt (3 Novem-ber 2002)

120 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

3 Junliag Zhang Javed Mostafa and Himansu Tripathy ldquoInformation Retrievalby Semantic Analysis and Visualization of the Concept Space of D-Libreg MagazinerdquoD-Lib Magazine 8 no 10 (October 2002) lthttpwwwdliborgdliboctober02zhang10zhanghtmlgt (3 November 2002)

4 Zhang Mostafa and Tripathy ldquoInformation Retrieval by Semantic Analysis andVisualizationrdquo

5 Ibid6 Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Data Analysis Services ldquoCentre

de Donneacutees astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS)rdquo nd lthttpwwwkmsdkfagsps10cdshtmgt (8 December 2002)

7 Teuvo Kohonen Self-Organizing Maps 3d ed (Berlin Springer 2001)8 Gerry McKiernan ldquoThe NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service

Astronomyrdquo Library Hi Tech News 18 no 7 (August 2001) 30-389 Phillipe Poinccedilot Soizick Lesteven and Fionn Murtagh ldquoA Spatial User Inter-

face to the Astronomical Literaturerdquo Astronomy amp Astrophysics Supplement Series130 (May 1998) 183-191 Available at lthttpwwwedpsciences-usaorgarticlesastropdf199810ds1464pdfgt (27 October 2002)

10 Phillipe Poinccedilot Soizick Lesteven and Fionn Murtagh ldquoMaps of InformationSpaces Assessments from Astronomyrdquo Journal of the American Society for Informa-tion Science 51 no 12 (October 2000) 1081-1089

11 Institute of Physics ldquoAbout the Institute of Physics Objectivesrdquo c2002 lthttpaboutioporgIOPobjectiveshtmlgt (10 November 2002)

12 Institute of Physics ldquoElectronic Journals from Institute of Physics PublishingCurrent Journal by Titlerdquo c2002 lthttpwwwioporgEJS3632gt (10 November2002)

13 Institute of Physics ldquoIOP Physics Reviewsrdquo c2002 lthttpwwwioporg EJS3632EdcpHimpqm1I1lYMw6kNQejs_extra-coll=revgt (10 November 2002)

14 Institute of Physics ldquoBEC Mattersrdquo c2002 lthttpwwwioporgEJS3632EdcpHimpqm1I1lYMw6kNQejs_extra-coll=becmgt (10 November 2002)

15 Institute of Physics ldquoIOP Journal Archive News Updaterdquo c2002lthttpwwwioporgEJS3632BSzOWcNtHdHO1ZRVuYXwhelp-topic=freearchivemain-list=allgt (10 November 2002)

16 Institute of Physics ldquoHelp Search results Clustering with Vivisimordquo c2002lthttpwwwioporgEJS3632hxztEXFE2crpBFOb72n2Qhelp-topic=clustersearchgt(2 December 2002)

17 Institute of Physics ldquoHelp Search Results Clustering with Vivisimordquo18 Viviacutesimo ldquoCompany Corporate Profilerdquo c2002 lthttpvivisimocomabout

Corporate_Profilehtmlgt (10 November 2002)19 Frances C Wilkinson Nancy K Dennis and Barbara S Rosen ldquoBack to the Fu-

ture At Last Librarians Chart a New Course in Scholarly Electronic PublishingrdquoAgainst the Grain 9 no 5 (November 1997) 80 Also available at lthttpwww-sulstanfordedustaffpubsatghtmlgt (7 December 2002)

20 HighWire Press ldquoHighWire Press A Brief Introductionrdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordeduaboutintrodtlgt (11 November 2002)

21 HighWire Press ldquoAbout Our New Site HighWirerdquo c2002lthttphighwirestanfordeduaboutsitedtlgt (11 November 2002)

22 HighWire Press ldquoBrowse Journals By Topicsrdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordedulistsallsitesdtlview=by+topicgt (11 November 2002)

Gerry McKiernan 121

23 HighWire Press ldquoUpcoming Journalsrdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordedulistsfuturedtlgt (11 November 2002)

24 HighWire Press ldquoBrowse Journals By Topicsrdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordedulistsallsitesdtlview=by+topicgt (11 November 2002)

25 HighWire Press ldquoAbout Our New Site HighWirerdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordeduaboutsitedtlgt (11 November 2002)

26 HighWire Press ldquoHighWire Press A Brief Introductionrdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordeduaboutintrodtlgt (11 November 2002)

27 HighWire Press ldquoOriginal Prospectusrdquo c2002 lthttpwwwhighwireorgaboutoriginal_infodtlgt (13 November 2002)

28 Entrieva ldquoAbout Entrievardquo nd lthttpwwwentrievacomentrievaaboutindexaspHdr=aboutgt (6 December 2002)

29 HighWire Press ldquoTopicMaprdquo c2002 lthttphighwirestanfordeduhelphbtindexdtlgt (23 November 2002)

30 Inxight Software Inc ldquoQuestions about Inxight Software Incrdquo lthttpwwwinxightcompdfsinxight_corp_faqpdf gt (23 November 2002)

31 HighWire Press ldquoTopicMaprdquo32 Ibid33 HighWire Press ldquoCitation Maprdquo nd lthttpwwwhighwireorghelppopcitemap

dtlgt (26 February 2003)34 Ibid35 HighWire Press ldquoInstant Indexrdquo nd lthttpwwwhighwireorghelppop

instantindexdtlgt (27 February 2003)36 London Business School ldquoWelcome to the Libraryrdquo nd lthttpwwwlondon

edulibrarygt (17 November 2002)37 London Business School ldquoLondon Classification of Business Studiesrdquo nd

lthttpwwwlondonedulibraryPrint_ResourcesLCBSlcbshtmlgt (17 November2002)

38 Utrecht University ldquoAbout Utrecht Universityrdquo 2002 lthttpwwwuunluupublishhomeuuhomeenglishaboututrechtuniv4469mainhtmlgt (20 November 2002)

39 Utrecht University ldquoFacultiesrdquo 2002 lthttpwwwuunluupublishhomeuuhomeenglishfaculties4476mainhtmlgt (20 November 2002)

40 Utrecht University ldquoFacts and Figuresrdquo 2002 lthttpwwwuunluupublishhomeuuhomeenglishaboututrechtunivfactsandfigures4473mainhtmlgt (20 Novem-ber 2002)

41 Utrecht University ldquoMedicine rdquo2002 lthttpwwwlibraryuunllibrarydisciplinesmedicine16389mainhtmlgt (9 December 2002)

42 MediaLab ldquoThis is MediaLabrdquo nd lthttpwwwmedialabnlengelsaboutindexhtmlgt (10 December 2002)

43 MediaLab ldquoTo Search Is to Find and to Discover with the AquaBrowser ndlthttpwwwmedialabnlengelsliquiddocumentenaquabrowserdocgt (20 Novem-ber 2002)

44 Ibid45 Ibid46 Ibid47 Ibid48 MediaLab ldquoConnecting Datardquo MediaLab Newsletter no 3 (November 2002)

lthttpwwwmedialabnlmailingmailing3htmlgt (27 February 2003)

122 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

49 Katy Boumlrner and Chaomei Chen ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital LibrariesndashTheFirst International Workshop at the First ACM+IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Li-brariesrdquo D-Lib Magazine 7 no 78 (JulyAugust 2001) lthttpwwwdliborgdlibjuly0107inbriefhtml gt (20 December 2002)

50 Boumlrner and Chen ldquoVisual Interfaces to Digital LibrariesndashThe First InternationalWorkshop at the First ACM+IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Librariesrdquo

51 Ibid52 Stuart K Card Jock D Mackinlay and Ben Shneiderman ldquoConclusionrdquo in

Readings in Information Visualization Using Vision to Think (San Francisco MorganKaufman 1999) 637

53 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ldquoAbout Visualization at PNNLrdquo 1999lthttpwwwpnlgovinfovizabouthtmlgt (20 December 2002)

54 Chaomei Chen Information Visualisation and Virtual Environments (LondonNew York Springer 1999) 110

55 James A Wise ldquoThe Ecological Approach to Text Visualizationrdquo Journal ofthe American Society for Information Science 50 no 13 (November 1999) 1224-1233

56 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ldquoOur Technologies Galaxiesrdquo 2000lthttpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologiesgt (21 December 2002)

57 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ldquoOur Technologies ThemeViewtraderdquo2000 lthttpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologiesgt (21 December 2002)

58 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ldquoThe ThemeView Visualizationrdquo ndlthttpwwwpnlgovinfoviztechnologiesgt (21 December 2002)

59 Stuart K Card Jock D Mackinlay and Ben Shneiderman Readings in Informa-tion Visualization

60 Chen Information Visualisation and Virtual Environments61 Gerry McKiernan and Peter Wasilko ldquoThe Big Picture(sm) Visual Browsing in

Web and non-Web Databasesrdquo 1999 lthttpwwwpubliciastateedu~CYBERSTACKSBigPichtmgt (25 December 2002)

62 Michael Reed and Dan Heller (Editors) ldquoOLIVE the On-line Library of Infor-mation Visualization Environmentsrdquo 1997 lthttpwwwotalumdeduOlivegt (De-cember 28 2002)

63 Robert Spence Information Visualization (Harlow Addison-Wesley 2001)

Gerry McKiernan 123

For more information or to orderThe Serials Librarianvisit httpwwwhaworthpresscomstoreproductaspsku=J123

bull or call (800) HAWORTH (in US and Canada) or(607) 722-5857 (outside US and Canada)

bull or fax (800) 895-0582 (in US and Canada) or(607) 771-0012 (outside US and Canada)

For a list of related linksvisit httpwwwhaworthpresscomstoreproductaspsku=J123

Urge your library to subscribe todayWith your libraryrsquos print subscriptionthe electronic edition of the journal canbe made available campus-wide to allof the libraryrsquos users

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