New Media Showcase

Abstract

New Media Services is a relatively new unit of Kent State University Libraries and Media Services that provides technological and pedagogical support for instruction. Working closely with faculty, teaching assistants, and academic support staff, New Media Services supplies research, design, and production services and is engaged with a variety of technologies that support the Digital Library. Four types of projects are described here to illustrate the range of applications of new media technology.The “Stater Archive” (http://www.library.kent.edu/stater) is a full text archive of Kent State University’s student newspaper. The Archive presently covers a period of five and a half years (from 1990 to 1996) and consists of a collection of SGML files converted (perhaps “salvaged” is a more descriptive term) from newspaper production files using a combination of batch text processing utilities and custom interactive editing software. The resulting files have been validated against a DTD written specifically for this application. Currently, a Web-based interface passes queries to a search engine and translates the SGML text to HTML for display within the browser. A disadvantage of this technique is the significant server overhead required to perform the necessary conversion for each request. This database is an excellent testbed for experimenting with the emerging XML/XSL standards. Eventually these technologies will provide a more refined delivery for the database, moving formatting tasks from the server to an advanced browser.Efficient, practical delivery of page images for issues prior to 1990 that only exist in paper or microform is being explored using the FlashPix image format.KeywordsDigital LibraryTeaching AssistantProduction ServicePedagogical SupportState ArchiveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.