Workshop Objectives

Research on “digital libraries” addresses many different areas. The lack of any agreement on the foundations for this broad research field has led to a plethora of models, systems, and results that are difficult to combine and reuse to produce enhanced outcomes. This workshop will bring together researchers involved in laying the foundations for the digital library research field. In particular, it will make it possible for them to discuss and explore their solutions in the context of a Reference Model for Digital Libraries.

This workshop will help in laying the foundations for digital libraries as a whole. It will engage the international digital library community in producing a reference framework wherein new results can be integrated, compared, and discussed – leveraging prior work on the definition of a Reference Model for Digital Libraries launched by the EU DELOS Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries (http://www.delos.info/ReferenceModel). That effort began in Europe, but has expanded with the invitation of international collaborators. This workshop will be the first open meeting to broaden the effort even further. Our aim is to draw upon the understanding acquired by a number of research groups active in the digital library field. This workshop intends to extend the participation in this activity to all researchers interested in the modeling of digital library aspects, in order to contribute to the understanding of key concepts in this field. It will take a full day, on 23 June 2007, and will include not only short paper presentations, but also other modes of communication, such as invited presentations, breakout groups, panels, discussant commentaries, and posters.


Topics

The workshop focuses on the modeling of three of the main aspects characterizing the Digital Library universe: Content, Architecture, and Quality. For each of these aspects the workshop participants will be asked to outline the specific and unique modeling and research challenges, and to identify some of the most promising candidate solutions to address those challenges.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: