A knowledge network approach for building distributed digital libraries

The Web is becoming increasingly popular as an infrastructure to efficiently share information. This infrastructure can be used to create a distributed digital library. A distributed digital library can be formed by allowing the digital content to be managed at several different Web sites while pointers to the content can be published on a delegate Web site. This simple scheme protects intellectual property as well as reduces privacy concerns. However, there are several problems that need to be considered when implementing the distributed digital library with current technology. First, the delegate Web site needs a mechanism to be notified from the participating Web sites regarding changes. Second, processing logic such as integration steps and security enforcement procedures should be easily specified and installed in the Web sites. Third, complex relationships among the Web sites in the digital library need to be specified and processed when integration occurs on the delegate Web site. We propose a Knowledge Network approach to implement a distributed digital library that solves such problems. The Knowledge Network is based on an event-trigger-rule model, where each participating Web site includes an extension to process these components. The automatic event notification, rule processing, and flexible trigger modeling of the Knowledge Network effectively supports the creation of the distributed digital library. An example implementation of the distributed digital library is also presented to verify the usefulness of the approach.