Call for Participation

ACM DL'96 --- Digital Libraries '96

First ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries

Bethesda, MD
March 20-23, 1996

ACM Digital Libraries '96 is an international conference devoted to advancing the state-of-the-art in digital libraries. The ACM DL series continues the sequence of Texas conferences: DL'94 in College Station and DL'95 in Austin. The leaders of those events are helping with DL'96 organization and program efforts. The meeting will be co- located with Hypertext '96 in 1996 and with ACM SIGIR '97 the following year. DL '96 will immediately follow Hypertext '96 at the Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, Maryland. The site is located near the Washington D.C. Metro and provides easy access to the many attractions in the Baltimore-Washington area.

The DL series is sponsored by ACM, through SIGIR and SIGLINK. Other ACM SIGs have joined in cooperation, including: SIGAda, SIGART, SIGBIO, SIGCAPH, SIGCOMM, SIGCUE, SIGDA, SIGMIS (formerly SIGBIT), and SIGOIS.

In-cooperation sponsors include:

Three sessions at the conference have been reserved for the working groups of the Digital Library Forum. These groups are studying aspects of interoperability in digital libraries. During the sessions, members of the groups will describe the objectives of the groups, describe progress to date, and lead discussions of the issues. The exact list of topics has not been finally chosen, but will likely include open architectures for digital libraries, archiving and digital preservation, and the Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library.

Technical Program

We seek panels, papers, posters and videos on the one hand--and proposals for tutorials and workshops on the other hand-- on topics related to Digital Libraries, including but not limited to the following list:

Papers

Technical papers present original reports of innovative and substantive new work that has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Papers are refereed by a pool of reviewers for the conference proceedings, published by ACM. Because of the tight time schedule, designed to ensure that the latest results will be discussed, there will be little time for revision, so submissions should be in near-final form.

Important Dates:

Submissions:

Papers must be written in English and contain a maximum of 6000 words (excluding figures). If possible, use 10 point Times Roman, single-spaced, with no more than a total of 12 pages. The proceedings will be printed in typical ACM 2-column format, and articles will have a limit of 10 pages. If submissions are made with paper, 6 copies must be provided. If submissions are made electronically, the Subject line must say DL96 PDF Submission and Adobe's Portable Document Format MUST be used. See http://www.adobe.com/ for further information.

NOTE 1: PDF is NOT POSTSCRIPT. (It is the successor to PostScript.)

NOTE 2: PDF is an ASCII format, and so can be sent at the bottom of your message, without MIME, uuencode, tar or other complications.

Send submissions to arrive by October 17, 1995 to:

Edward A. Fox, Professor
Dept. of Computer Science
660 McBryde Hall
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061-0106
Phone +1-540-231-5113
FAX +1-540-231-6075
Email: fox@vt.edu

Panels

A small number of 60 minute panel sessions may fit into the technical program, if they involve lively discussion as well as reporting of important results or controversial opinions. Proposals should come from prospective moderators, in email form as plain ASCII text, sent to Ed Fox (see above). No more than the equivalent of 3 pages single spaced writing is allowed. Proposals are due Nov. 1, 1995, and must include the following sections.:

  1. Moderator: name, title, affiliation, contact information, short biographic sketch, and experience in organizing panels.
  2. Panelists: names and affiliations of those who agreed to participate, along with a short summary of their role and planned contribution.
  3. Purpose: theme, goals, objectives, desired effect of the panel.
  4. Rationale: explanation of why this panel will be of interest / value, why the panel format is most suitable, and what type of interaction will take place with the audience.

Tutorials

Tutorials will precede the conference and serve to introduce attendees to principles in the field, develop bridges between the computer science and library/information science communities, or examine advanced topics in depth. Tutorials will be scheduled for 2.5 hour slots on Wednesday afternoon and evening, March 20, 1995. Tutorials are invited on topics such as the following:

Submissions should include a 200-word abstract, a 1-page topical outline of the course content, and describe course objectives, intended audience, and the qualifications of instructor(s). Proposers are encouraged to contact the tutorials chairperson to discuss planned proposals. Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of background of the instructor(s) and the contribution of the tutorial to the overall conference program.

Submit four copies of the proposal by October 17, 1995 to:

Edie Rasmussen
SLIS
University of Pittsburgh
135 N. Bellefield Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Phone (412) 624-9459
Fax (412) 648-7001
erasmus@lis.pitt.edu

Posters

Poster presentations allow researchers to present late- breaking results or significant work in progress. Posters will be refereed. Poster sessions allow authors and conference participants to discuss the research in detail in one-on-one or small group settings.

Submissions should consist of an extended abstract of at most two pages emphasizing the problem, what was done or is being done, and why the work is important. Include: title, name and affiliation of the author(s) and complete contact information. Note that the extended abstracts of the posters will be published in the conference proceedings.

Submit four copies of the proposal by November 1, 1995 to:

Beth Davis-Brown
National Digital Library Program
LIBN/O/NDL (1000)
The Library of Congress
Washington, DC  20540
Phone (202)-707-3301
Fax (202)-707-0815
bbro@loc.gov

Videos

Videos allow researchers and developers to illustrate the dynamics of operational and prototype systems. Videos will be refereed and selected videos will be shown at a session during the conference so authors can verbally annotate their work.

Submit videos that are a maximum of 5 minutes in length. VHS format (NTSC) is required for review, and Hi-8, SVHS, or Betacam SP are the formats required for final submissions. It is likely that an author-supplied or conference-prepared digital video version will be prepared also and made available, so be sure that suitable releases can be provided for all submissions. Also, please prepare a one-page summary of the video which will be published in the conference proceedings.

Submit two copies of the videotape and written summary by October 17, 1995 to:

Charles Goldstein
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD  20894
Phone (301) 496-1936
Fax (301) 480-6183
chuck@nlm.nih.gov

Workshops

Workshops provide an opportunity for up to 25 participants to discuss issues in both research and applied areas for one day. Workshop attendance is normally by invitation based on attendees' response to a call for workshop participation. Organizers should draft a call describing the workshop and submit a three-page proposal containing: an outline of the theme and goals of the workshop, a description of the intended audience, an overview of activities planned for the workshop, estimates of number of participants, and a brief description of the organizer backgrounds and experience.

Submit four copies of the proposal by October 17, 1995 to:

Maria Zemankova
c/o Ed Fox
Dept. of Computer Science
660 McBryde Hall
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061-0106
Phone: (703) 306-1926
Fax: (703) 306-0599
mzemanko@nsf.gov

Conference Committee

General Chair
Gary Marchionini (University of Maryland at College Park)
Technical Program Chair
Ed Fox (Virginia Polytechnical Institute & State University)
Tutorials
Edie Rasmussen (University of Pittsburgh)
Workshops
Maria Zemankova (National Science Foundation)
Posters
Beth Davis-Brown (Library of Congress)
Videos
Charles Goldstein (National Library of Medicine)
Treasurer
Lawrence Fitzpatrick (Personal Library Software Inc.)
Publicity
Nancy Van House (University of California Berkeley)
Registration
Linda Hill (University of Maryland at College Park/CESDIS)
Local Arrangements
Lida Larsen (University of Maryland at College Park)
Industry Liason
Roberta Rand (National Agriculture Library)

Technical Program Committee

For further information, see http://fox.cs.vt.edu/DL96/