A Digital GeoLibrary: Integrating Keywords and Place Names

A digital library typically includes a set of keywords (or subject terms) for each document in its collection(s). For some applications, including natural resource management, geographic location (e.g., the place of a study or a project) is very important. The metadata for such documents needs to indicate the location(s) associated with a document - and users need to be able to search for documents by keyword as well as location. We have developed and implemented a digital library that supports – but does not require georeferenceable documents (i.e., documents with reference to geography through the use of a textual place name). Because of their implicit spatial footprint, place names benefit from spatial reasoning and querying (e.g., to find all documents that describe work performed within a five-mile radius of a certain point) in addition to traditional keyword-based search. This paper presents the architecture for a digital library that combines spatial reasoning and selection wi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ERCIMDL
• Authors: Mathew Weaver, Lois M. L. Delcambre, Leonard D. Shapiro, Jason Brewster, Afrem Gutema, Timothy Tolle
• Keywords: Digital Library, Documents, ERCIMDL 2003, Place Names