OVERVIEW OF PROGRESS IN LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT

We rate our progress in terms of both research and development as very good, and significantly beyond our expectations at the beginning of the Project.

In terms of the history of the development of our testbed system,

1. during the first six-months of the Alexandria Project, (10/01/94-02/28/95), we successfully completed our first testbed system, which was a stand-alone ``rapid prototype'' (RP) system;
2. during the next twelve months of the project, (03/01/95-02/29/96), we developed a second testbed, which we termed the ``Web prototype'' (WP), based upon available World Wide Web (WWW) technology;
3. during the next twelve months, (03/01/96-02/28/97), we consolidated our testbed in many significant ways and, as a result, the system has been available for beta testing for some time now. Over 2000 individuals were involved in this beta test program, providing valuable information for our redesign efforts.
4. during the last twelve months, (03/01/97-02/28/98), we developed an operational library, with a redesigned interface, new 3-tier client-server architecture, a Java client and significant data collections available to the University of California community.

Several major activities are now taking place that will dominate many of our development activities during the coming six months (03/01/98-08/31/98). In particular,

1. augmenting the functionality of the ADL clients such as client-side processing, Java interfaces for inter-client communication and coordination and deploying a Z39.50 client. We are re-implementing the middleware as a Java servlet plug-ins to standard web browsers.

2. redesign the ADL Catalog (in order to eliminate unused attributes, enforce referential integrity, improve performance, etc.). Build server support tools for librarians

3. develop an ingest system for the new gazetteer and integrate it into the ADL Interface.

4. ADL and the California Digital Library (CDL) will refine a loading plan that will support the first release of CDL. This work includes cataloging a set of collections, generating browse thumbnails and distributing data between the ADL and the SDSC stores.

5. evaluate the new Java-based client interface.

Much of the progress that we have made over the past year has been a result of a large number of fruitful interactions with partners from the private, public, and university sectors. For example, we have made and are continuing to interact closely with the following partners:

1. The California Digital Library (CDL)
2. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)
3. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI)
4. Hughes
5. Informix
6. Microsoft
7. National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)
8. Oracle
9. San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
10. US Geological Survery (USGS)
11. US Navy (NRaD, San Diego)
12. US Navy (NAVO, Stennis)
13. Utah State University

Our research has progressed along many productive fronts during the past twelve months. As a result we now have a much better understanding of such issues as:

1. a three-tier testbed architecture,
2. collections building,
3. operational library issues,
4. active user interfaces (using Java) with context-sensitive help,
5. semantic interoperability of metadata, particularly for images, and the development of visual thesauri;
6. user requirements in terms of access to geospatially-referenced materials;
7. user evaluation techniques and tools
8. scalable resource discovery
9. multi-dimensional indexing, data placement for parallel I/O, management of tertiary storage, content-based retrieval, and performance tuning;
10. image processing issues concerning access to geospatially referenced information, including wavelet transforms for both lossless and lossy compression, image segmentation algorithms utilizing texture and color information, updating algorithms with applications to database search, digital watermarking for copy detection;
11. the construction of high-performance Web servers that are based on multicomputing concepts.
12. development of safe areas of computation to ensure secure computattion

The Project has also developed a variety of other well-established activities that involve significant interactions with many groups outside of the Project. Apart from our close research and development interactions with the other DLI projects, we have been working closely with a broad range of partners, including

1. The California Digital Library (CDL)
2. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)
3. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI)
4. Hughes
5. Informix
6. Microsoft
7. National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA)
8. Oracle
9. San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
10. US Geological Survery (USGS)
11. US Navy (NRaD, San Diego)
12. US Navy (NAVO, Stennis)
13. Utah State University