Digital libraries (DLs) have introduced new technologies as well as leveraging enhancing and
integrating related technologies since the early 1990s. These efforts have been enriched
through a formal approach e.g. the 5S (Societies Scenarios Spaces Structures Streams)
framework which is discussed in two earlier volumes in this series. This volume should help
advance work not only in DLs but also in the WWW and other information systems. Drawing upon
four (Kozievitch Murthy Park Yang) completed and three (Elsherbiny Farag Srinivasan)
in-process dissertations as well as the efforts of collaborating researchers and scores of
related publications presentations tutorials and reports this book should advance the DL
field with regard to at least six key technologies. By integrating surveys of the
state-of-the-art new research connections with formalization case studies and exercises
projects this book can serve as a computing or information science textbook. It can support
studies in cyber-security document management hypertext hypermedia IR knowledge management
LIS multimedia and machine learning. Chapter 1 with a case study on fingerprint collections
focuses on complex (composite compound) objects connecting DL and related work on buckets
DCC and OAI-ORE. Chapter 2 discussing annotations as in hypertext hypermedia emphasizes
parts of documents including images as well as text managing superimposed information. The
SuperIDR system and prototype efforts with Flickr should motivate further development and
standardization related to annotation which would benefit all DL and WWW users. Chapter 3 on
ontologies explains how they help with browsing query expansion focused crawling and
classification. This chapter connects DLs with the Semantic Web and uses CTRnet as an example.
Chapter 4 on (hierarchical) classification leverages LIS theory as well as machine learning
and is important for DLs as well as the WWW. Chapter 5 on extraction from text covers
document segmentation as well as how to construct a database from heterogeneous collections of
references (from ETDs) i.e. converting strings to canonical forms. Chapter 6 surveys the
security approaches used in information systems and explains how those approaches can apply to
digital libraries which are not fully open. Given this rich content those interested in DLs
will be able to find solutions to key problems using the right technologies and methods. We
hope this book will help show how formal approaches can enhance the development of suitable
technologies and how they can be better integrated with DLs and other information systems.
