Linking: where are we now and where are we going?
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720210473056 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Pages | 47-51 |
| Author | Harry E. Samuels |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Linking: where are we
now and where are we
going?
by Harry E. Samuels, Digital Library
Projects Coordinator, Endeavor
Information Systems
Keywords: Information management, Internet
Abstract: Linking in the scholarly
environment has built on the basic linking
capabilities of the World Wide Web and
evolved to make the research process faster
and more efficient. There are many
components in the current linking environment
and they often overlap and frequently inter-
operate. Despite the advances, linking is still
in its infancy and future evolution will be rapid,
especially as the underlying technologies
evolve. This paper describes the current
scholarly linking environment, its evolution, its
components, and what we have to look
forward to in the future.
Where we are now
The World Wide Web has created a vast network
of information and resources that make many
things possible. One of these is the ability to link
together related pieces of information regardless
of where they reside. Most web pages today have
links to other pages (that are scattered across the
web) because the author has decided that they are
relevant. This is linking in the web environment
in its most fundamental form. As more and more
scholarly information has become digitised and,
more importantly, as become available on the
web, the owners of this content have begun to
leverage this beautiful linking capability.
This first manifested itself in the form of bilateral
linking agreements (Figure 1). As an example,
Content Provider A has an abstracting and
indexing database that covers a certain subject
area. Content Provider B has full-text articles that
cover the same subject area. A and B decide that
it is in each of their interests to have a formal
agreement that will enable A to provide links
from its citations to full-text articles in B's
system. The researcher benefits because with one
click they have been able to move very quickly
from identifying an interesting resource to
reading the resource ± without getting out of their
chair ± and they can probably do this from their
office, dormitory room, or home. The research
process just became much faster and much more
efficient. This valuable new dimension that has
been added to scholarly research is predicated on
the fact that the user has access to both A's and
B's resources, temporarily ignoring the fact that
the library made this possible by subscribing to
both resources. If the library had decided that
they preferred to get the same full-text articles
from Content Provider C instead of Content
Provider B, then they and their patrons would be
out of luck.
The next new dimension in scholarly linking to
be introduced was multi-lateral linking. Instead
of Content Provider A and Content Provider B
signing a bilateral agreement, they join a
coalition that includes Content Provider C and
many other content providers who all agree to
link their content together. They develop a
mechanism to do this and now the probability has
increased that a library has a subscription to
providers of related content that link together.
Now the link from Content Provider A that used
to go directly to Content Provider B goes through
a link resolution mechanism that results in a link
to content Provider B or Content Provider C or
another member of the linking coalition
(Figure 2). The probability that a user can link
from one content provider to another content
provider has been increased. The library's users
are now doing their research faster and more
efficiently in more situations. The problem that
presents itself is that this coalition does not
include everything that is available
electronically. It does not include swathes of
Figure 1 ± Bi-lateral linking
#MCB UP Limited, ISSN 0305-5728, DOI 10.1108/03055720210473056
VINE, Volume 32 Number 2 2002, Issue 127 Ð 47
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