Administering Structured Documents in Digital Libraries

Administering Structured Do cuments in DigitalLibrariesKlemens Bohm, Karl Ab erer, and Erich NeuholdGMD-IPSIDolivostrae 15, 64293 Darmstadt, GermanyE-mail:fkb o ehm, ab erer, neuholdg@darmstadt.gmd.deAbstractIn this chapter we argue that hyp erdo cuments administered bydigi-tal libraries have to b e structured according to standardized storage andexchange formats in order to allow for the manipulation functionalityrequired in digital library construction, maintenance and use. We demon-strate how SGML and its extension, HyTime, can play this structuringrole, and howmultimedia do cuments structured accordingly can b e stored,changed and maintained in the ob ject-oriented database system VODAK.Using the dynamic semantic extension facilities of VODAK it is illustratedhow the do cument structuring dynamics o ered by SGML and HyTimecan b e accommo dated in the database. In addition we discuss howthisfacility can b e combined with other system comp onents to provide a rel-evant p ortion of the functionality required for digital libraries.1Intro ductionThe exp onential growth in the amount of published information has led to acrisis in manyof today's libraries.On the one hand the choice of what tokeep, even in a limited eld, is b ecoming harder and harder, on the other handthe selection of relevant information for a sp eci c library user also b ecomesmore dicult. The old idea that a library provides its readers with the rightinformation in the right amount for an acceptable price at the right time is ab outto fail. In a nutshell, a solution to these problems can b e seen in transforming thecontents of a library to digitalized electronic form and thus gaining advantagesin pro ducing, selecting, storing and o ering information. However, next to thegrowth in the amount of information two other phenomena have o ccurred. Theapp eared in: Advances in Digital Libraries, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 916,Springer Verlag, 1995.1