[100] in Information Retrieval
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ganderso@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Tue Jun 23 15:47:32 1992
From: ganderso@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: elibdev@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 14:37:36 EDT
To: LIBTALK, ELIBDEV
From: Greg
Subject: TULIP - draft proposal
-----------------------------------
MIT Proposal to Participate in the Elsevier TULIP effort
1. Statement of Commitment and Context for MIT's proposal
MIT will participate in the Elsevier Tulip effort as one activity
within a larger MIT umbrella program called the MIT Distributed
Library Initiative (DLI). The DLI is a five year campus-wide
undertaking spear-headed by MIT Information Systems and the MIT
Libraries. The overarching goals of the initiative are:
Improve connections to library services and patrons all over
the world.
Improve electronic library services to patrons within the
Libraries.
Deliver electronic library services to MIT scholars
(students, graduate students, faculty, researchers, and
staff) over MITnet, MIT's campus computer network.
Improve automation of library operations.
The many facets of DLI incorporate a variety of information
resources, storage, management, delivery, and presentation to the
MIT community via the campus computer network. Our process uses
a prototyping model that enables hands-on experience and learning
with technology, information, and users requirements. The TULIP
project fits well with the DLI goals, especially the two central
goals of improving electronic library services to patrons in the
libraries and to deliver electronic library services to MIT
scholars. TULIP provides a focused activity to work with
information critical to our Materials Science community and to
learn in-depth the needs and uses of journal information
delivered electronically. The knowledge gained in this
experiment will inform tailored services to other disciplines at
MIT. Other activities in the Distributed Library Initiative will
provide direct knowledge of the information needs of a broader
segment of the Institute. This spectrum of in-depth learning and
broad-based experience speaks to the range of our project and
what we hope to learn.
2. TULIP Goals and Objectives
The goals and objectives of the TULIP project (Working Plan 2,
June 1, 1992) coalesce well with the MIT goals stated above:
1.2. Objective: Determine the technical feasibility of
network distribution of journal information.
1.3. Objective: Prototype organizational and economic
models for network distribution.
1.4. Objective: Study user behavior under different
economic and distribution scenarios.
Objective 1.2. and the specific technical issues (1.2.1 - 1.2.6)
will be addressed by capitalizing upon the existing distributed
computing environment that characterizes the MITnet. Our focus
for distribution is to deliver the electronic form of the journal
to the workstation and to exploit the power of the workstation
installations at MIT. Our initial conversations with MIT faculty
in Materials Science indicates a keen desire to see articles
delivered to the workstation and to retrieve easily a high
quality print. We view the TULIP project as an ideal learning
testbed for scientific information delivery that will become
applicable for many disciplines and many types of information.
Objective 1.3 has organizational and economic components.
Within MIT, our organizational model is based upon collaboration
between MIT Information Systems and the MIT Libraries. The
project will be directed by a Steering Committee composed of the
director's of these two groups, and each organization will
contribute technical staff expertise (distributed computing and
networking staff, librarians, subject specialists, and library
systems staff. This group also welcomes input from other
segments of the MIT community who share our interest in
information delivery. Indeed, the DLI is an umbrella program
that seeks to involve all relevant activities at MIT.
MIT will present an opportunity for Elsevier to work with us to
establish one prototype of an economic model for electronic
delivery of published material. Intellectual property is a key
asset of MIT, and we have an Intellectual Property Officer who is
willing to participate in the discussions. The technical
objectives will also inform the discussion on the economic model,
especially regarding security. Because of Project Athena
developments, the MIT network environment can exercise access,
validation, and authorization controls.
Objective 1.4 coincides with an information services study now
being conducted and analyzed by the MIT Libraries. This
investigation will focus on three disciplines: Materials Scince,
Brain and Cognitive Science, and Management. MIT will design its
TULIP participation to incorporate information learned from this
study, providing a more comprehensive and integrated view of the
use of electronic information in Materials Science. Through
appropriate evaluation methods we will assess the effectiveness
and value of online delivery of journal information. We believe
that better access to all information is a fundamental component
of quality research, and TULIP provides an opportunity to provide
enhanced access to research data.
3. Project Description
Name: Elsevier TULIP at MIT
Priority: High visibility (inter-institutional collaboration and
work with Elsvier); the possibility to drive economic
models with Elsevier; learn about electronic
information delivery and scholarly use.
Audience: MIT Materials Science and Engineering faculty,
researchers, and students. Specifically, we will work
with the MIT Materials Processing Center and the MIT
Center for Materials Science and Engineering.
Potentially, other MIT scholars who need the
information for inter-disciplinary or ancillary
purposes.
Platform: MIT is investigating several potential platforms for
delivery of TULIP information. Through current
development efforts on electronic journals, the
capabilities and requirements for WAIS are being
investigated. MIT also has a license for the BRS
search engine and we will investigate its
appropriateness to search and deliver TULIP materials.
Our Materials Science researchers require both high
quality display of the material on the workstation as
well as the capability to print.
Formats: For the table of contents data, we will investigate the
feasibility of moving those fields into the proposed
bibliographic record format which is being designed to
support the Computer Science Technical Report project
(appendix E). For the image files, we will investigate
the appropriateness of RFC 1314 produced by the Network
Fax Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF) (appendix D).
Contents: To be supplied by Elsevier from set determined by the
TULIP group: preferably 600 dpi images, possibly via
Cornell, delivered biweekly via FTP.
Plan: Key participants are the MIT Distributed Library
Intiative group (MIT I/S and MIT Libraries), Elsevier,
TULIP participating institutions, and possibly Harvard.
Time: 11/21/91 MIT letter of intent to Elsevier
7/01/92 MIT proposal to Elsevier
Remainder of the timetable to be determined
Service life expectancy: 1/92-12/94 ("minimum term of Elsevier
commitment is 1/92 -12/94")
Resources: one-time Sufficient server hardware, library
staff workstations, target audience
workstations, printing facilities, etc.
recurring Elsevier subscription for journals we
don't get in paper; MIT DLI development,
operations, and supporting staff, etc.
Maintenance, support, expansion of the
hardware and communications base.
Library: Elsevier subscriptions, existing systems
staff & other necessary libraries staff
(subject specialists, reference, etc.).
IS: Applications staff, server hardware
MatSci: Workstations for access
4. Addenda to the MIT TULIP Proposal
In addition to the proposal itself, we are including several
appended documents in order to provide a sense of the range of
interest and activity at MIT.
Appendix A: A report of our first meeting with the the MIT
Materials Processing Center and the MIT Center for
Materials Science and Engineering to discuss with
them the Tulip project and to begin the process of
working together.
Appendix B: A brief listing of related information technology
projects at MIT. We believe that TULIP fits well
into this spectrum of investigations. The project
which is most closely allied with Tulip is the
Computer Science Technical Report project which is
under consideration by DARPA. The members of that
collaborative project (Cornell, CMU, Stanford, UC
Berkeley, MIT) are also members of the TULIP
effort. We believe that the learning and research
process for the CS/TR project will inform our
technical work with TULIP.
Appendix C: "Report of the Electronic Journals Task Force."
This report reflects discussions, perspectives,
and courses of action identified by an MIT
Libraries Task Force, fall 1991. This report was
subsequently printed as "Report of the Electronic
Journals Task Force MIT Libraries," Serials
Review, v.18, no.1-2, 113-129.
Appendix D: A File Format for the Exchange of Images in the
Internet. RFC 1314. April 1992. This IETF
standards track protocol will be used in the DARPA
sponsored Computer Science Technical Reports
project, described briefly in Appendix A. In the
interest of building consistent architectures for
Tulip at MIT, we would encourage Elsevier to
follow this format.
Appendix E: A Proposal for bibliographic records, v. 1.5.
Again, this is the citation record format that the
Computer Science Technical Report project is
considering, and MIT will adapt that format to
accomodate the citation data supplied by Elsevier.
5. Conclusion
MIT is prepared to participate to the full extent its resources
permit and to share with Elsevier and the TULIP participants its
findings. Clearly we are interested in both the technical and
scholarly components of the experiment, and we believe that
participation in this project serves Elsevier, MIT, and
scholarship in higher education.
