Designing Digital Libraries for the Hyperliterate Age

Many Web and Internet technologies have traditionally been used to serve information across machines and among people. Recently, there has been a great deal of interest shown in using these information services to support digital libraries. Research in digital libraries is an interdisciplinary effort that must synthesize existing results from highly disparate fields. This paper examines two such contributing fields information systems and orality-literacy studies and applies them to a particular digital library domain, botanical taxonomic work. In trying to build digital libraries for botanical taxonomists, we show how two widely differing fields can each provide part of a solution neither can provide alone. Categories: H.4.m, K.4.m 0 Description of the Paper Many Web and Internet technologies have traditionally been used to serve information across machines and among people. Recently, there has been a great deal of interest shown in using these information services to support digital libraries. Research in digital libraries, as any interdisciplinary endeavor, is confounded by the fact that one must consider and synthesize from several fields, including those that are perhaps unfamiliar. On the one hand, we do not want to become experts in many fields generally, things are complicated enough on their own without introducing the complexities, terminologies, and traditions of other fields. On the other hand, we must learn to understand some unfamiliar ideas if we ever hope to undertake interdisciplinary research * [Nürnberg et al. 1996b]. This paper seeks to tie together two very different fields information systems and orality-literacy studies that each have something to offer the digital library designer. As such, it will be the case that almost everybody will find some part of this paper unfamiliar. The authors have chosen an unconventional format for presenting this material. The paper contains two threads for the two fields it draws upon. Some sections belong in only one thread, while others belong in both. The paper can be read in different ways, but most people will find it easiest to read the thread with which they are more familiar first, in order to contextualize the material, and then delve into the other thread. Figure 1 below illustrates the organization of the paper. (Note: the information systems thread should be read from the left column and the orality-literacy thread from the right.)