Network Community Oriented Information Sharing System
for Databases
Yuka EGUSAÝ , Masao TAKAKUÝ , Hidehiro ISHIZUKAÞ
Ý Graduate School of Information and Media Studies,
University of Library and Information ScienceÞ Institute of Library and Information Science, University of Tsukuba

Abstract
We have developed a network community-oriented
information sharing system for databases. Today, it isdifficult to find out which databases are available andto select appropriate databases which satisfy users’
needs, because various databases are available. We
classified information about databases into two categories. One is the fundamental information sufficient for users to select databases depending on theirown needs. We designed 21 items as fundamental information and developed the system such thatusers are able to browse and add fundamental information. The second type of information is commentary information, which is comprised of, for example, users’ know-how and grouping information fromvarious viewpoints. In our system users are able tobrowse and add commentary information. We haveused 3,614 records from databases in Japan, derived
from Database Daicho Soran, as a sample data set
for our system. The system allows users to share
information about databases, easily discover suitabledatabases and use them.
Keywords: information sharing, fundamental information about databases, network community

1 Introduction
Many more databases are available than in the past,
because information resources, including databases
accessed without restrictions of time or a place, havebeen increasing with the spread of the Internet andmany of them are offered freely. Moreover, users’ behaviors have been varied because of the variety in the
database users. Before the spread of the WWW, mostusers of databases were specialists, but today mostof the users are end users of various jobs and ages.
Also it is necessary to use a number of databases often in order to satisfy the demands of a search, because the demands vary and the number of records
included in one database is limited. For example, traditional search engines have limits specifying that dynamically generated pages not be covered[1], though
they are intended for the whole Web. Consequently it

is difficult to find out which databases are available,
to select appropriate databases and to make full useof databases.
These problems can be solved by building community to share fundamental information about
databases. We designed items required to describe
fundamental information about databases and constructed a system where users were able to input information and browse it. In this system, users canalso share their own know-how about databases.

2

Related works

Our approach to finding, selecting and using
databases is one in which users are able to input anduse information about databases with each other. A
similar approach to this problem cannot be found. In
this section, we describe related works related to thisproblem.
Database directories have been created to summarize information about databases; e.g. Gale Directory of Databases[2]; Database Daicho Soran[3] (InJapan); database directory[4] by National Instituteof Informatics (In Japan); and Dnavi[5] by National
Diet Library of Japan, which is limited to databaseson the WWW. These directories are compiled from
reports or inquiries by the respective organizations.
The directories supply users with know fundamental
information about databases. However, the scope of
the information covered by these directories is limited to commercial databases and/or CD-ROM based
databases. The frequency at which they are updatedis 1-2 times per year. Another problem is that these
directories cover fundamental information only.
There are also books for beginners or for specificfields which summarize typical uses of databases[6].
The scope of information covered by these books islimited, because these books are created for various
purposes from the authors’ viewpoints. Additionally,
information in these books does not follow updatesof the databases.
There are some studies that help users to selectdatabases by using an expert system[7][8]. Thesestudies are modeled on specialists’ strategies fordatabase selection. They extract information fromsome database directories and/or search specialists’knowledge. In contrast with our study, these focus
only on databases which are already known by an operator of an expert system. In these studies, discovering a new database depends on the operator.
WAIS[9] is a system which has a feature to provide information about databases. WAIS has a special database, which is called directory-of-servers.
A directory-of-servers stores fundamental information about each distributed database: location, keyword, description, etc. Its approach is similar to oursin sharing fundamental information about databases.
However, only a database provider is able to add
information about a database in WAIS. It does nothave a feature allowing casual users to add information. While our system covers all kinds of databases,
a directory-of-servers covers databases based on a
WAIS protocol only and does not have a feature tohandle users’ know-how.
Meng et al.[10] classified approaches of databaseselection in metasearch engines into three categories:
rough representative approach; statistical representative approach; and learning-based approach. Many
approaches have been proposed to tackle the databaseselection problem[11][12]. The database selectionin the context of metasearch engine research meansthat a system or a user selects one or more appropriate databases from a limited set of databases,
which a metasearch engine handles, while our approach covers all kinds of databases including unknown databases in a distributed environment. In
short, our approach is different from the metasearchengine approach from the viewpoint of discovering a
database.
Iwasawa et al.[13] developed a system to organizeand share users’ know-how of reference service in alibrary. Their approach is similar to ours for sharingreference tools including databases used in Q&As,
but their system focuses on sharing know-how anddoes not have a feature for reusing fundamental information.
There are some studies on designing and sharing
collection metadata[14][15]. Collection metadata describes library collections, museum collections, digital archives, and search services such as Yahoo! andAltavista. Collection metadata describes databases aswell. The collection metadata approach is similar toours in the sharing of fundamental information aboutcollections. But collection metadata does not coverusers’ know-how.

3 Sharing fundamental information
Using our system allows users to share various information about databases with each other. A user

Information Sharing Systemproduce

database provider

librarianbrowseuser Aproduceproducebrowsesearchgrouping feature
data flow
describesearchuser B

Figure 1: Overview of sharing fundamental informationof our system is able to find suitable databases for
his/her information needs through the shared information, to understand how to use the databases, andorganize that information from his/her point of view.
Figure 1 shows an overview of our system for sharing fundamental information. Using our system allows users to cooperatively input and share information about databases. For example, if a librarian wants to provide a list of available databasesin his/her library, he/she can extract only the desired information and make the list. If a provider of
databases gives out fundamental information about
their databases, users of the databases can acquirethat accurate information more quickly, and theprovider can benefit as if it were an advertisement.
Furthermore, because all users of our system can add
new information, this information becomes available
to all users.

4

Fundamental
about databases

information

Fundamental information which is contained commonly in most databases gives users sufficient information about the database, such as the name of thedatabase, the name of the system, the database producer’s name, the area covered by the database, thenumber of records in the database, the language of therecords, the subjects of the database, and the terms ofuse. We designed 21 items as fundamental information.
In order to be able to reuse data, the fundamental information is described as Extensible Markup
Language (XML) data. Figure 2 is an example ofactual data, which is derived from Gale Directoryof Databases[2]. We have used 3,614 records fromdatabases in Japan, derived from Database Daicho
Soran[3], as a sample data set for our system.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE database_metadata SYSTEM"db.dtd"><database_metadata><id>9394</id><source_id></source_id><created_date>2004-01-09T18:42:42</created_date><update_date>2004-01-09T18:46:55</update_date><userid>sakura</userid><dbname>ERIC</dbname><system></system><condition>RIE archival file, $900; annual
subscription with monthly updates, $900.
</condition><format/><contributor>U.S. Department of Education:
Office of Educational Research andImprovement(OERI)</contributor><description>Contains more than 1 million
records from both the journal and report
literature in the field of education andeducation-related areas.</description><subject>education</subject><type/><lang>English</lang><period>1966 to date</period><total></total><interval>Monthly</interval><interval_num></interval_num><region>United States</region><category/><access></access></database_metadata>

Figure 2: Example of data

5 Commentary
about databases

information

Another type of information in databases is thecommentary information about the databases. This
information is a kind of know-how, such as tips forsearch techniques, grouping information from various points of view, and so on. Because the commentary information is generally heterogeneous, it is difficult to reuse it for any other purposes. However, thisinformation in itself is often useful, and sharing it isuseful as well. Nevertheless, if a user knows only thecommentary information for a database and does notknow the fundamental information for the database,he/she cannot access the database. Because of that,
it is necessary for users to know the fundamental information as well as the commentary information. In
other words, it is effective to refer the commentary information and the fundamental information complementarily.
In our system, users can browse and input both thecommentary information and the fundamental information. Specifically, the grouping feature in our system allows users to bring together similar databases
on a subject. The grouping information allows users
to browse the fundamental information from various
viewpoints. Furthermore, users are able to communicate with each other, since the commenting feature in
our system allows any comments, tips and Q&A foreach database.

6

System features

Our system has the following features: browsing,search (field specific or full-text), user authentication,
input and updating of fundamental information, comment, and grouping.

6.1

Browsing

The browsing feature mainly consists of brief representation and full representation of the fundamental information and the other information, and showsthese to users. The brief representation is displayed ingroups of 20 records. It shows IDs, names, descriptions, and subjects for each database. Figure 3 shows
an example of a brief representation of the fundamental information, which is the top page of the systemand sorted by the last date modified. A full representation displays all the fundamental information for a
database, comments on the database, and the grouping information for the database. In the full representation of the database, keywords and subjects are
hyperlinks to brief representations of records whichhave the same keywords or subjects. Figure 4 shows
an example of a full representation of the fundamental information.

6.2

Adding and updating the information

There are three methods for users to add or update
the fundamental information in the system: newly
added input, updated input, and imported input. A
newly added record is created from a scratch. An
updated input means that a user updates an existing
record. The user can modify a part of the record andregister it into the system. An imported record meansthat a user exports an existing record and inputs it into
the system as a new record.

6.3

Comment

The commenting feature allows users post acomment on the fundamental information for eachdatabase. This feature is similar to “BBS” feature.
By using this feature, users can discuss and share thecommentary information about databases.

6.4

Grouping

The grouping feature allows users to relate and organize multiple databases around each other. In oursystem, a group consists of four components: thename of the group, a description of the group, a setof databases which belong to the group, and the IDof the user who has created the group. A user can
independently create a group and bring databases together to the group. Since a set of grouped databases
is linked from the full representation of the database

Figure 3: Brief representation of the fundamental information

regardless of the person who creates the database andthe group, users can browse and share the organizedview of databases with each other.
Figure 5 shows an example of a user’s page. In thispage, the user can add a new group, edit the grouping
information and browse it.

6.5 User authentication
The user authentication feature allows our system
to identify a user and get the user’s permission by using a login ID and a password. In our system, a user
who does not have a login ID is a guest user and auser who has a login ID is a login user. Guest users
are able to browse all the information but do not edit
the added information. Only login users are able toadd fundamental information and commentary information and to update them. Only the user who creates them can update the fundamental information orgrouping information. Since each user has a different permission to edit a record, the user interface ofthe system changes accordingly. For example, if alogin user visits the fundamental information whichis created by him/her, a link to edit the information
appears.

6.6

Development environment of thesystemOur system is constructed under the frameworkof Common Gateway Interface (CGI) on the Web.
Our system stores the fundamental information as an
XML format, builds the indices from it for the fieldsearch, and stores the commentary information as aplain text format. When users search or browse in thesystem, CGI programs of the system access these data
files and display them properly. When the system displays a brief or full representation of the fundamental
information, the system converts the XML file into
an HTML format by using XSLT stylesheets[16] andreturns it to the browser.

7

Discussion

This section describes related works and possible
usages of the system.

7.1

Related works

This section describes related works from threeperspectives: community-oriented systems, sharedcataloging system and OAI systems.

Figure 4: Full representation of the fundamental information

7.1.1 Community-oriented systems
There are several network community oriented information sharing systems. Community sites such as
Amazon.com[17] is one such system. Community
sites are the sites in which the fundamental information about special topic is stored and users discuss
the information. These sites are similar to our systemin terms of sharing the commentary information, butsuch sites which can add the fundamental informationand can reuse it are not found. Another example ofa community-oriented system is Wiki[18], which has
capabilities for users to create communities in a free
way. Wiki serves as a site in which visitors freely
browse, create and edit pages. But Wiki has no capabilities for reusing the information in it unlike oursystem has.
7.1.2 Cooperative (shared) cataloging system
A shared cataloging system like OCLC[19] is another example of an information sharing system likeours. Shared cataloging system helps a participating
library make catalogs of books and share them witheach other. If one library makes a catalog (fundamental information on a book) by using this cataloging
system, any other libraries can import it into theirown library system and avoid duplicating the cataloging of the book. The concept of sharing the fundamental information intended for books is widely employed.
We extended this concept for databases to whichshare fundamental information.
In this case,databases are different from books. Since books are
physically fixed media, once the fundamental information for a book is inputted, it is almost never modified. On the other hand, there is a tendency to add
new data to a database, update data and migrate thesystem for that database. Also, databases are offeredin many formats such as through networks or on CDROM. For these reasons, it is difficult to identify adatabase.
In our system, the following approaches are taken
in order to solve the problems described above. Users
do not identify a database and can make multiple
records for one database. Instead, users can organize databases as a group if they seem to be the same
database. If there is imported fundamental information from a database, the source of the database isdisplayed.

Figure 5: User’s Page

7.1.3 OAI-based systems
The approach of OAI[20] protocol-based systems is to enable access to Web-accessible material
through interoperable repositories for metadata sharing and aims for a low-barrier interoperability solution to access across heterogeneous repositories. Its
approach is similar to our system in terms of sharing information, but our approach is to share information including that which is not yet digitized, which
each individual user has, while OAI’s approach aims
at sharing already digitized repositories.

7.2 Possible usages of the system
When some individuals and/or organizations share
information about databases, there are various waysof managing it. For example, there are some restrictions on permission for user’s login, some rules foradding new information, etc. Since the policies ofthe operators of the systems vary, there is no single
best way of management. Each organization whichruns a system has to decide on its own policy. While
our system employs a simple policy which allows casual users to edit records freely, the system can support various policies without any modification. In thissection, we describe things related to types of systemmanagement. First, we describe policies for the system which should be considered. Next, we describe
capabilities of our system which support those policies.
Our system policy is seen from two viewpoints.
First, there is a trade-off between quality and quantity of information in creation of information. There
are a lot of factors in the trade-off; e.g. limiting users
who are able to add information to the system; creating guidelines for adding information; checking theinformation added; creating a controlled vocabulary.
In this paper we do not discuss the full combinationof factors, but we do think that adequately setting alevel for the factors and combining the factors to control the trade-off well will result in better information
sharing. Next, from the viewpoint of use of information limiting users in various ways would also be
effective. This is discussed below.
We describe capabilities of our system in relation
to the factors discussed above. In order to increase
the quality of information limiting users who are familiar with databases would be expected, or in order
to increase the quantity of information granting anyone, including guest users, to add information would
be expected. In our system, anyone including guest

users can browse fundamental information and login
users can browse and add fundamental information.
Furthermore, even if there is a request to restrict access to local users of their own enterprise or a request
to restrict access to users familiar with databases, oursystem supports those requests without any modification. Consequently the information about databases
can be shared at various levels depending on the policy of the organization which runs the system.
Some guidelines for adding information can becreated: e.g. defining the databases to add; or specifying each item to describe. Since there are various ways of integrating a guideline into the system,
whether to customize our system or not depends onrequirements of the guideline.
Checking added information means that a checker
checks and/or corrects this information. In our system, a checker is able to point out another user’s errors by using a commenting feature. In our system,
since a checker who is not an author of the fundamental information can not modify the fundamental information directly, it is necessary to modify our system
to enable a checker to modify the other user’s information.
In order to maintain the secrecy of databases used
in a company, or their usages, users of our systemshould be limited within their own companies. Because our system is developed under a framework of
WWW/CGI, it supports its request without any modification, the only exception being the configuring ofa setting on the WWW server where the system runs.

8 Conclusion
We have developed a network community-oriented
information sharing system for databases. We designed items required to describe the fundamental
information about databases and developed the system where users are able to browse and add thisinformation. Furthermore, in the system users areable to browse and add the commentary information for databases. Consequently, users are able toshare information for databases, easily discover suitable databases and use them.

Acknowledgments
We appreciate the anonymous reviewers for theirvaluable comments. We express our thanks to Prof.
Fred Anderson for his kind advice about the English
on our paper.

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