Support for the Learner:
What, Where, When, and Who
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Support for the Learner:
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Last updated: October 25, 2005
This Time Period Directory user guide provides an overview on the web interfaces to the Time Period Directory relating named time periods to calendar dates, locations and time period types. The web interfaces show a variety of search possibilities within the Time Period Directory and are also connected to the Library of Congress catalog and, experimentally, to the Wikipedia Web Encyclopedia to demonstrate the feasibility of other search entry points into catalogs and other information resources.
It is accessible at: http://ecai.org/imls2004/TimePeriodDirectory/tpdindex.html
The Time Period Directory implementation contains over 2000 records harvested from chronological subdivisions from Library of Congress subject heading records. For a detailed description of the implementation process, see the technical report (Leveraging Library of Congress Subject Headings to improve Search for Events - A Time Period Directory, October 2005).
Three principal entry points are provided on the starting page:
The Country Browse interface provides an overview of events or time periods. Three alphabetical lists are provided: country, US states, and major world cities. Under each country, state or city, events and time periods are listed chronologically by starting date. Each event has an icon associated with it that will trigger a catalog search in the Library of Congress catalog. Since our Time Period Directory records are created from LC subject headings, we can use these subject headings (from which we extracted our instances) to trigger a precise subject search in the catalog. The drop-down menu allows selection of a specific country and events associated with it.
Country Browse interface, showing alphabetical list for countries.
A catalog search returns catalog records from the Library of Congress with subject headings and other authors linked for further search. Clicking on a subject heading will trigger a search for this subject heading in the Library of Congress catalog. For subject headings associated with a name, we have also implemented an experimental link to the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia to look up biographical information.
Catalog record.
The Map Browse function provides the same search functionalities like the Country Browse interface, but using a map with a color coding showing those countries that are associated with more events in a darker color.
The map interface allows for zooming in to different countries and US states. Clicking on a country or state triggers a search to the Time Period Directory showing the events associated with that country. All records are once again linked to a catalog search.
Map Browse interface.
Zooming in to Europe and clicking on the dot for Paris opens
a menu allowing searching for events for the city of Paris or the country of
France.
Planned, but not yet implemented, is a feature in the lower part of the map enabling a user to restrict the events shown on a map by time. We also plan to color-code the different types of events shown on the map.
The Time Line Browse provides another view of the data - organized by date. This entry point might be especially interesting to a general searcher, trying to orient him- or herself about a period of time. This first prototype allows viewing all events and periods of our Time Period Directory in a given century.
The events are sorted by date and once again linked directly to a Library of Congress catalog search. Once we have implemented the time line slider in the map interface, we will also be able to provide a chronological entry point from the map.
Time Line Browse
Implementation Note:
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The Time Period Directory is implemented in a MS Access database, using
ASP to do dynamic querying from the web interface. All catalog queries
are implemented with the Cheshire
II Search Engine. The map interface is implemented with the TimeMap
Software developed at the University of Sydney. |
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This work was partially supported by an Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant for Libraries, award number LG-02-04-0041-04, Oct 2004 - Sept 2006.
© ECAI IMLS 2004 project Support for the Learner: What, where, when and who. October 25, 2005