[OAI-eprints] Visualized Subject Access for Open Access Archives

[Gerry Mckiernan]

           _Visualized Subject Access for Open Access Archives_

    With the completion of my latest mansucript on "New Age Navigation:
Innovative E-Journal Interfaces" [soon to appear (I hope) in a library =
serial journal near you [:-)], I now turn my Eyes [:->] toward a Most =
Timely Topic:

                  Subject Access to Open Access Archives

   At the 2nd Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI): Gaining =
Independence with E-prints Archives and OAI

                [http://library.cern.ch/Announcement.htm ]

the topic of *Subject* access permeated several presentations

[http://documents.cern.ch/AGE/current/fullAgenda.php?ida=3Da02333  ]

and one break-out session on OAI Services, in particular

   [http://documents.cern.ch/cgi-bin/setlink?base=3Dagenda&categ=3Da02333&i=
d=3Da02333s9t13/text ]

   While I (and others) saw a role for traditional Abstracting and Indexes =
services in providing a Value Added Subject Overlay to:

OAI Data Providers[http://www.openarchives.org/Register/BrowseSites.pl ]

and/or

OAI Service Providers
[ http://www.openarchives.org/service/listproviders.html ]

it has occured to me that it may be more appropriate to exploit the =
inherent potential  of the digital environment to provide topic- and =
subject- based access to these respective sources through technologies =
that Visualize the Information, instead of the conventional A&I process =
(automated or otherwise which we had in mind.

 My forthcoming paper  profiles several information visualization =
technologies and visual interfaces for e-journals, and include:

1)   Kohohen Self-Organizing Maps (SOM)=20

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3540679219/qid=3D1041536283/sr=3D2-1=
/ref=3Dsr_2_1/104-9724355-6538317
[for examples, see

Astrophysical Journal=20
[http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/ApJ/map.pl ]=20

and/or

Astronomy & Astrophysics=20
[http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/A+A/map.pl ]

2) SPIRE(tm) of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
[ http://www.pnl.gov/infoviz/spire/spire.html ], notably ThemeView(tm)


3) AquaBrowser [http://www.medialab.nl/engels/index.html ] for MediaLab=20
For examples, see eLibraryHub (http://aqua.elibraryhub.com/)
[Type 'Iowa' as a search term :-)]

4) Concept Space=20
For examples see _D-Lib Magazine_=20
[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october02/zhang/10zhang.html ]

[ http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~junzhang/dlib/IV1.html ]=20

   For a future paper (Yes, Yes, Yet another paper)[:-)], I would =
appreciate Any and All contributions, queries, comments, critiques, =
questions, Cosmic Insights, revised earnings statements, etc. on the =
Matter of Visualized Subject Access to Open Access  Archives. Current or =
planned efforts to visualize *any* resource that is Dublin Core coded
[ http://dublincore.org/ ] is also of interest.

NOTE: For background information on the Open Access Initiative see:

                             [http://www.openarchives.org ]

   Regards,

/Gerry=20

Gerry McKiernan
Open Librarian=20
Iowa State University=20
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck@iastate.edu=20

                                                 "Happy New Year!"