iScape: A Collaborative Memory Palace for Digital Library Search Results

Massive amounts of data are available in today’s Digital Libraries (DLs). The challenge is to find relevant information quickly and easily, and to use it effectively. A standard way to access DLs is via a text-based query issued by a single user. Typically, the query results in a potentially very long ordered list of matching documents, that makes it hard for users to find what they are looking for. This paper presents iScape, a shared virtual desktop world dedicated to the collaborative exploration and management of information. Data mining and information visualization techniques are applied to extract and visualize semantic relationships in search results. A three-dimensional (3-D) online browser system is exploited to facilitate complex and sophisticated human-computer and human-human interaction. Informal user studies have been conducted to compare the iScape world with a text-based, a 2-D visual Web interface, and a 3-D non-collaborative CAVE interface. We conclude with a discussion.