Supporting Information Management in Digital Libraries with Map-based Interfaces

Abstract

The Self-Organising Map (SOM) has been proposed as an interface for exploring Digital Libraries, in addition to conventional search and browsing. With advanced visualisations uncovering the contents and its structure, and advanced interaction modes as zooming, panning and area selection, the SOM becomes a feasible alternative to classical interfaces. However, there are still shortcomings in helping the user to understand the map - there are insufficient methods developed for describing the map to support the user in the analysis of the map contents. In this paper, we present recent work in assisting the user in exploring the map by automatically describing maps using advanced labelling and summarisation of map regions.