ETANA-DL: A Digital Library for Integrated Handling of Heterogeneous Archaeological Data

Ravindranathan, Unni and Shen, Rao and Goncalves, Marcos and Fan, Weiguo and Fox, Edward and James, Flanagan (2004) ETANA-DL: A Digital Library for Integrated Handling of Heterogeneous Archaeological Data. Technical Report TR-04-04, Computer Science, Virginia Tech.

Abstract

Archaeologists have to deal with vast quantities of information, generated both in the field and laboratory. That information is heterogeneous in nature, and different projects have their own systems to store and use it. This adds to the challenges regarding collaborative research between such projects as well as information retrieval for other more general purposes. This paper describes our approach towards creating ETANA-DL, a digital library (DL) to help manage these vast quantities of information and to provide various kinds of services. The 5S framework for modeling a DL gives us an edge in understanding this vast and complex information space, as well as in designing and prototyping a DL to satisfy information needs of archaeologists and other user communities.