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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1–6Cite as

Browsing in Digital Libraries

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Synonyms

Exploring; Looking over/through; Surfing

Definition

Informally, browsing is a process that involves looking through a collection of information. Thus, in a traditional library, one may wander about the stacks, glancing at titles of works in regions where one expects to find interesting material. In the broadest sense, browsing is considered as one type of exploration, typically less directed or purposeful than searching, in that the goal or result is not always precisely known in advance. In the World Wide Web, this is very common, making use of “browsers” like Firefox or Internet Explorer. Sometimes the colorful term “surfing” is used when it seems appropriate to emphasize the excitement that some feel when exploring new Web content or the thrill of getting closer to some desirable result. Yet, the WWW is but one example of a hypertext (or, if multiple media types are considered, hypermedia) environment. Accordingly, in a digital library, which many believe must include a...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Baeza-Yates R, Ribeiro-Neto B. Modern information retrieval. Reading: Addison-Wesley; 1999.

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  2. Fox EA, Urs SR. Digital libraries, chap. 12. In: Cronin B, editor. Annual review of information science and technology, vol. 36. Medford: Information Today, Inc.; 2002. p. 503–89.

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  3. Fox EA, Rous B, Marchionini G. ACM’s hypertext and hypermedia publishing projects. In: Berk E, Devlin J, editors. Hypertext/hypermedia handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1991. p. 465–7.

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  4. Goncalves M, Fox EA, Watson L, Kipp N. Streams, structures, spaces, scenarios, societies (5S): a formal model for digital libraries. ACM Trans Inf Syst. 2004;22(2):270–312.

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  5. Shen R., Vemuri N., Fan W., Torres R., and Fox E.A. Exploring digital libraries: integrating browsing, searching, and visualization. In: Proceedings 6th ACM/IEEE-CS joint Conference on Digital Libraries. 2006, p. 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, CA, USA

    Rao Shen

  2. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Edward A. Fox

Authors
  1. Rao Shen
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  2. Edward A. Fox
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rao Shen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Dept. of Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara, 93106--5110, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Amr El Abbadi

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© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media LLC

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Shen, R., Fox, E.A. (2017). Browsing in Digital Libraries. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_40-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_40-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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