Multidimensional ranking for data in digital spatial libraries

Abstract

Digital spatial libraries currently under development are generating large repositories of data which will continue to grow. As these repositories grow, the situation will inevitably arise in which a digital library user may be confronted with several hundred spatial data sets in response to a particular query. The question then arises as to how the results from this search can be most easily assimilated by the user. Text based materials have benefited from substantial research and experience on ranking of search results. Ranking of spatial data sets has not received the same attention since there has been little motivation for such activity until recently. In this paper we propose a multidimensional ranking scheme based on the three dimensions of space, time, and theme. The multidimensional rank is presented graphically to inform users about how well data sets from a digital spatial library meet their spatial, temporal, and thematic targets.