Online library services have been mostly available uniquely in English. To serve the diverse communities that uses library services, a growing number of libraries have been investigating the ins and outs of offering virtual reference in languages other than English. Developing this kind of service in languages spoken by various library user groups…

This document chronicles the development of a hypermedia CD-ROM product that offered information on the island of Cyprus. The hypermedia environment was designed for use by students and educators in eleventh grade up to the college level, and it was intended to fill gaps in multicultural knowledge by enabling individualized, self-paced instruction…

This paper describes the Perseus Project, an undertaking begun in the Classics Department of Harvard University devoted to the creation of a massive interactive hypermedia product on ancient Greek culture. The project is discussed in terms of its importance; contents; funding; development; delivery systems; future releases; costs; user acceptance…

Hypertext is well-suited for educational applications where open learning and knowledge exploration is desired. In such applications, principles of good hypertext interface design should be employed to avoid navigational problems so as to maximize learning. Interface design, however, may also directly enhance acquisition of a particular knowledge…

The Informedia Project at Carnegie Mellon University has created a multi-terabyte digital video library consisting of thousands of hours of video, segmented into over 50,000 stories, or documents. Since Informedia's inception in 1994, numerous interfaces have been developed and tested for accessing this library, including work on multimedia…

This is a story about screen interactivity and its magical early influences. It includes a brief history of the evolution of the computer, with examples from contemporary applications in art and museum education. I believe it is important to know about the early days of drawing on the screen to get a sense of the continuum of ideas that has led us…

Digital libraries of the future will be shaped by the technologies, standards, and models adopted today. This article examines interoperability of library systems, metadata standards, copyright management, fair use, preservation of digital information, problems resulting from technological advancement, costs, print versus Web resources, and…

Discusses issues related to natural language processing, including theoretical developments; natural language understanding; tools and techniques; natural language text processing systems; abstracting; information extraction; information retrieval; interfaces; software; Internet, Web, and digital library applications; machine translation for…

This article identifies benefits of using Internet technologies in an organization's intranet or internal information system: ease-of-use, one interface, implementation cost, access, information services (flat content and interactive intranets), support desks (via Web services and e-mail), document management. Discusses the impact of intranets on…

Reviews issues relating to database technology and digital libraries. Highlights include resource sharing; ongoing digital library projects; metadata; user interfaces; query processing; interoperability; data quality; copyright infringement; and managerial implications, including electronic versus printed materials, accessibility,…

Addresses the cultural gap between teachers who are computer literate and those who are not. Highlights include traditional teaching methods; surface reasons for not using computers, including high cost, complexity, hostile interface, and rapid obsolescence; the opportunity for students to become independent lifelong learners with the Internet;…

Investigates the effects of two hypermedia interface design strategies on learner efficiency, perceptions of usability, and performance. Compares undergraduate student outcomes of comprehending and locating information by using manual and visual filtering via computers. Findings support the use of these filtering tools as methods of increasing…

Describes an educational experiment at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland) in which 40% of the mathematics assessment for the students' first year was undertaken by a computer program. Discusses aspects of security, human-computer interface, and educational matters such as partial credit, and presents implications for the future.…

Provides historical background information about multimedia CD-ROM encyclopedias and evaluates 11 recent releases. Discusses access to information, costs, content, technological developments. Rates the text, multimedia, and user interface. A sidebar provides a 10-year chronology of CD-ROM encyclopedias. (AEF)

Describes tools for authoring all aspects of a knowledge-based tutor system: domain model, teaching strategies, student model, and learning environment. Discusses a number of design issues and design tradeoffs that are involved in building intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). (Author/CCM)