Abstract
includes children. The audience was wowed with two reports on the International Children’s Digital Library ‐ a five-year project to develop and test the best way of using technology to provide online access to children’s books in a format designed to mimic the thought processes of a child rather than an adult. The actual software technologies are based on previous NSF-funded research conducted between 1999 and 2002 by HCIL to develop an interface to support 7-9-year-olds in querying, browsing and organizing multimedia information. Two search methods are available and both are highly visual using zoom to move between the specific and the general. The first method shows a globe. The child clicks on a region and books from or about that region are displayed. The other method searches through 13 categories in a way that matches how a child would look for a book if actually present in a library. Working with children during the design, it was decided that books should be searchable by the color and shape of their covers as well as how they make children feel ‐ e.g., whether it is a “scary” book or a “happy” book. Other categories include subject, type of characters and “true” or “make-believe.” Although the interface is particularly usable and flexible, its downside is its requirement that the PC be a minimum of a 700 MHz Pentium III, 256 MB RAM, operate with a Java Virtual Machine plug-in and have broadband access. Identifying this as a significant limitation, HCIL just announced the launch of an HTML-only version that will work over dial-up. The other report related to the Children’s Library was on an effort funded by a threeyear NSF grant to analyze and expand functionality to meet the needs of children aged 10-13 years. The older kids rejected the “cute” design of the interface considering it too childish. They were interested in a “cool” interface, but there was a diversity of ideas as to what represented “cool.” The solution was to provide a way for the older kids to customize the “skin” of the interface. Younger children use the library for read
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