digital libraries laboratory @ uct . cs

Period

2006-2007

Description

Information Management Systems (a.k.a. digital libraries, electronic libraries, networked information systems, etc.) are new to most developing countries, yet we in developing countries have the most to benefit from an unfettered sharing of electronic resources. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in South Africa (and other African countries) in the use of these systems for the setting up of institutional repositories, electronic thesis and dissertation collections, electronic journal management systems, citation management systems for funding agencies, etc. In order to support this emerging trend, there is a desperate need for appropriate technology - technology that can adapt to changing and different needs, resources and scales of operation that can be found across the various institutions and archives in Africa.

This project aims to investigate techniques, models and tools for the management of large quantities of data using scalable clusters of off-the-shelf computers. There has already been much work done to demonstrate that digital libraries can be built out of medium-sized components (see previous NRF-funded Flexible Digital Libraries project, and US-NSF-funded OCKHAM project) - this work seeks to look into how these medium-sized components can be distributed across computers in a dynamic local network so that the size of the data can scale with the number of machines, thus meeting the changing needs of a society where digital library technology is slowly gaining acceptance.

Resources

• Proposal to NRF

Team Members

hussein, Mayumbo Nyirenda, Muammar Omar

Publications

Mayumbo Nyirenda, and H. Suleman (2008), "X-Switch: A Secure, Multi-User, Language-Independent Web Application Server", in Proceedings of CARI'08, 28-30 October 2008, Rabat, Morrocco.

Ndapandula Nakashole, H. Suleman and Calvin Pedzai (2007), "Dynamic Role Allocation for Small Search Engine Clusters", In Barnard, Lynette and Reinhard A Botha (eds): Proceedings of Annual Research Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists (SAICSIT 2007), Port Alfred, South Africa. Available http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000431/01/dynamic_role.pdf

Suleman, H. (2007). "Managing Digital Library Components", in Proceedings of Second Workshop on Foundations of Digital Libraries, 20 September, Budapest, Hungary. Available http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000432/01/foundations_2007_paper.pdf

Suleman, H. (2007). "Digital Libraries Without Databases: The Bleek and Lloyd Collection", In Kovacs, Laszlo, Norbert Fuhr and Carlo Meghini (eds): Proceedings of Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, 11th European Conference (ECDL 2007), pp. 392-403, 16-19 September, Budapest, Hungary. Available http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000433/01/ecdl_2007_dlwd.pdf

Suleman, H. (2007). "in-Browser Digital Library Services", In Kovacs, Laszlo, Norbert Fuhr and Carlo Meghini (eds): Proceedings of Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, 11th European Conference (ECDL 2007), pp. 462-465, 16-19 September, Budapest, Hungary. Available http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000434/01/ecdl_2007_ajax.pdf

Suleman, H. (2006). "Parallelising Harvesting", in S. Sugimoto, J. Hunter, A. Rauber and A. Morishima (eds): Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2006), 27-30 November, Tokyo, Japan, Springer-Verlag, pp. 81-90. ISSN: 0302-9743. ISBN: 978-3-540-49375-4. Available http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000328/01/icadl_2006_oaihpc.pdf

Muammar Omar, and H. Suleman (2006). "Component-based digital library scalability using cluster computing", in P. A. van Brakel (ed): Proceedings of 8th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications, 5-8 September, Bloemfontein, Cape Peninsula of Technology, pp. 1-18. ISBN: 978-0-620-37309-8. Available http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000324/01/Component-based_Digital_Library_scalability_using_Cluster_Computing.pdf

Suleman, H., Christopher Parker and Muammar Omar (2008), Lightweight Component-Based Scalability, International Journal on Digital Libraries, Volume 9, Issue 2, pp. 115-128, Springer.