Russian-American Digital Libraries Workshop

Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

Wrap Up Meeting, Closed

April 17, 1998

Co-Chairs - Bogdanov and Fox

Rough Meeting Notes

Itkin - Three ideas for how to proceed:

1. Submit project directly to NSF, by an American University, can write in to directly support Russian scientists. Funds will be spent in USA to cover: Travel. Equipment - $5K

2. Visit of Russian scientists to the USA. Procedure is to have a supplement to an existing NSF grant. This would be to invite a Russian researcher. Proposals will be considered by originating department, then international department, then international program will support. Doesn't require to spend own money. Supplement could cover travel, short-term stay of 3-4 months, equipment.

3. Submit an international project, simultaneously to NSF and RMS (Russian Ministry of Science). These would be considered both independently and as a collaborative project. Direct agreement between two universities would be presumed. Are there any appropriate terms to make this clear?. Project submitted to NSF by a US university could have this agreement attached. And it is possible to ask authorities to put this into the list of priority projects under the framework of the USA Vice President Al Gore and Ex Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin Commission. The projects that are already in the queue have ??this priority.(I don’t remember this last sentence or what it means.) Good idea to submit simultaneously.

Bogdanov - Basically difficult to share without solid connections. Need a dedicated link. Else useless.

Need of projects to justify a faster networking link. Currently the main link is

St. Petersburg to NY - 4 megabits. Used as IP connection. Want to increase up to at least 10mps. Would need more say for videoconferencing, distributed data bases, distributed testbeds. Information on results of building such testbeds with GMD Germany and St. Petersburg might help prove the case for a faster link with US.

Itkin - start up point for any project will be Chicago. Some discussion on whether Moscow or St. Petersburg is the central point. Right now discussing 150 mps. Would be joint.

Terry Smith will follow up with Steve Griffith, who is taking the lead on networking.

Itkin - The Gore- Chernomyrdin Commission has three groups

1. dl

2. networking

3. supercomputing

Hohlov - Need to systematize this discussion. One more step towards Russian-American DL Program. Joint projects are what we need. Joint projects in 1999. International funding.

Fox - Framework = mechanisms for cooperation and collaboration

Bogdunav - all is clear. Extract all the information.(I am not sure what that means.) Three ways.

1. Proposals to Gore- Chernomyrdin Commission

2. Proposals to corresponding agencies in both countries.

3. One site submittting proposals for traveling etc.

Fox - can give more information, e.g. for students

1. Travel - workshops, travel, exchanges

2. Communication - websites, publications

3. Timeframe - series of steps, e.g. meetings that are planned, where we can meet, or we may need to plan others

Discussion: is there a way to apply to Gore- Chernomyrdin Commission or not? Commission is not prepared to accept proposals? Only through an agency? Note: Web information does not give information about how to apply for money - for example, http://www.ta.doc.gov/itp/nis/gccpage.htm

Fox - bring this back to scheduling, e.g. DLI-2 due in July. If trying to do this for conferences, need to do this soon. Need to have pairings of universities. Want groups who are serious, who have met. Conferences e.g. ACM-DL in June, European-DL in September, IFLA in August. What about a roundtable in IFLA? Calendar - Funding deadlines and listings of other events would be useful.

topics for cooperation:

1. multilingual issues

2. architectures for DL's

3. interoperability among DL's

4. intellectual property rights (IPR) issues

5. networking

6. standards - related to topic (3)

Note on the California Digital Library, nine campuses, and Stanford in a major effort. A research and operational component. Design of architecture, which we hope to share with the community. Vast effort here.

We can define exploratory exchange of ideasbased on content areas:

1. Education - e.g. in the Singapore project (SINGAREN high speed connection), a high priority

2. Environment - a key issue for us all

3. Cultural Treasures - strong interest to share and learn about treasures

4. Medical content

Response from Bogdanov - a mirror service for example for popular sites. Great interest to know which services are the most popular from your side. Would be trivial to mirror, e.g. D-Lib and Russian magazine. E. g. Dr. Samsonova had 24,000 hits after the Maui visit. There is a Web-based directory of researchers. Can identify who is doing what.

Present conference was noted for translating service. Automatic translation machines needed for future events.

Important to know what the other party wants us to provide to this so-called neutral digital library. Need to learn what is necessary. Try to find what we can put on this library. Other part is, what is already ready to be put. What are the cultural heritage objects to include for our country. If we consider this, we can move faster.

Conferences: people want the latest information, newest results. Demonstrations are an excellent way to communicate. That could make a binding of our nations.

Hohlov - We must just mention and not go into detail. We cannot continue.(???) Very wide

Mendkovich - networking, protocols, principle decisions about packages (architecture) like databases, are priorities. We have obligation to have one or two pilot projects.

Fox - suggests we need planning and travel grants to make joint proposals a reality. Talked about Texas DL conference in 1994 where many proposed projects were discussed. Geographic spread is an impediment.

Itkin will be in U.S. for 4 months beginning in a few weeks. He and Bogdanov will be at the ADL meeting in Santa Barbara.

Hohlov - organize a directory to identify who is who, needs working group to look at entries and make matches; then organize a workshop to talk; third stage have a short visit to each country; fourth a concrete proposal can be made.

Need this step by step approach. Mention a few content areas just as examples. Need advice about importance of content areas. Kuny suggested environment information about Russia would be of interest to U.S. environmental researchers. Far East and Alaska are of interest to Russian environmental scientists. NASA and other Russian space agencies already cooperate.

Fox - Another mechanism. Attendance at the working groups now underway in connection with D-Lib or with the DLI supplement administered by U. Michigan involving Europeans and others.

Ultimately there might be a researcher-driven International Committee on Digital Libraries, briefly discussed earlier with Steve Griffin

3 or 4 joint efforts may have become obvious from this workshop. But there are many others. Explore different possibilities. Have one multilingual, one architecture, one interoperability, one IPR. You must have a way to do a call for pilot studies. If I were a funding agency, I would not fund a large project, need a seed project.

Itkin - Could recognize that we are a large group of collaborative people. Some other digital library projects, not represented here, exist. They may not even realize that they are doing DL's. We do not cover all areas in Russia. So we need to be broader.

Kohlov - There is a pre-history of this activity. Many other teams. Other room for projects in this area. Some in AI, some in Russian Academy of Science, some in OCR, they are not coming but we must spread out. I'm sure that for the next call, we will have something broader. I'm sure exponential growth.

Fox - encourage collaboration and broad teams. CS and librarians and subject area specialists.

Closing Comments Around the Table

Ershova - organize IFLA roundtable and a section, more visibility. International Information Specialists.

Kalinov - student exchange

Twiss - learn from California DL - build a link in. An environmental content problem, Lake ? (Klavins mentions Columbia project - Lamont Doherty Earth Institute).

Itkin - initiate specific projects which will guide us in the next steps. Understand official structure.

Frank - projects of real substance.

Kuny - strongly believe these efforts arenot just bilateral but occur in a broader international forum. Could be important in G7 Biblioteque project.

Need more community. Need to explain across cultures and disciplines. Mechanisms to communicate are needed too.

Reich - access to scientific content is growing. International networking infrastructure must be improved so scientists can access what is available.

Kalinichenko - problem confused. Too broad. Difficult to locate ourselves. E.g. if I speak about my institute, we can do a lot of things which I consider useful. How can I express my wishes, to whom. What is the formal procedure. Ed suggests that you be involved in making the inventory. Also making white paper. You and your group could be very helpful on this.

Mendkovich - in contrast to 80's. People don't trust information. Low quality. Slow access. In first stage, have to develop an elite system with high quality service. Kind of guarantee that you may trust this information. E.g. dedicated line. Authorization of information. You may trust this document.

Hohlov - my wish and my desire. Detailed cooperation. Bilateral cooperation. Joint program. Want the advanced technologies. Concrete program for exchange of ideas, people, institutional support. DL's is one of the major milestones of the future IT society.

Klavans - across the language barrier.

Fox - Support education.

Comments on the Process

How will we know who to interact with? Need a more complete set of templates with bibliography.

Suggestion - look at April issue of CACM. That will help with these write-up's. There are many projects.

This information should be coming soon.

Another issue: cooperation is difficult, even among the 6 DLI projects where the barriers are low. How should we work out real cooperation? E.g. what is the length of time, how long could they be, what does cooperation truly mean, would it count as a cooperative project if American goes to Russia or Russian to America. Do we mean a project team? How do we define this?

Should start from pilot projects, and just instrumental tools, e.g. tools, multilingual protocols.

Potential Ongoing Projects

Fox is working with St. Petersburg scientists on electronic theses and dissertations

Klavins is working with Kalinov on multilingual access

Fox and Klavins could integrate multilingual and dissertations efforts

Frank expressed interest in connecting with Mendkovich ?

Attendees

Russian Delegates

Leonid A. Kalinichenko,

Institute for Problems of Informatics of Russian Academy of Sciences

leonidk@synth.ipi.ac.ru

Alexander Bogdanov

Director, Institute of High PerformanceComputing and Data Bases,

bogdanov@hm.csa.ru, http://www.csa.ru

Andrei Itkin,

Institute of High Performance Computing and Data Bases

itkin@mcsa.ac.ru

Yuri Kohlov,

Russian Information Society Institute

kohlov@risi.ru

Tatiana Ershova,

Russian Information Society Institute

ershova@risi.ru

Anna Golubeva,

Sun Microsystems

anna.golubeva@russia.sun.com,

http://www.suns.ru

Alexei Kalinov

Institute of High Performance Computing and Data Bases

ka@ispras.ru

Andrei Mendkovich,

Institute of Organic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences

asm@free.net

Yuri Hohlov

Deputy Director, Library Automation Services and Information Technologies, Russian State Library hohlov@ipsun.ras.ru

USA and IFLA Delegates

Ed Fox,

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,

fox@vt.edu

Judith Klavans,

Columbia University,

klavans@cs.columbia.edu

Vicky Reich,

Stanford University

vreich@sulmail.stanford.edu

Terry Kuny,

IFLA

terry.kuny@xist.ca

Robert Twiss,

University of California, Berkeley,

twiss@regis.berkeley.edu

Randy Frank,

University of Michigan

frank@umich.edu

Also present:

Alexandr Stipanon - International Division of the NSF - contacts with eastern countries

Cassandra Dutka - Russia contact

Stas Bogdanov - interpreter

CURRENT EMAIL DISTRIBUTION LIST

"Yuri E. Hohlov" <hohlov@risi.ru>,

"Alexander Antopolsky" <iregistr@mail.sitek.ru>,

"Alexander Bogdanov" <bogdanov@hm.csa.ru>,

"Andrei Itkin" <itkin@mf.csa.ru>,

"Anna Golubeva" <Anna.Golubeva@Russia.Sun.Com>,

"Edward Fox" <fox@vt.edu>,

"Judith Klavans" <klavans@ober.cs.columbia.edu>,

"Kirill Nasedkin" <KN@museum.ru>,

"Mikhail Elashkin" <melashki@ru.oracle.com>,

"Oleg Syuntyurenko" <filt@rfbr.ru>,

"Randall Frank" <frank@engin.umich.edu>,

"Robert Twiss" <twiss@regis.berkeley.edu>,

"Steve Griffin" <sgriffin@note1.nsf.gov>,

"Terry Kuny" <terry.kuny@nlc-bnc.ca>,

"Terry Smith" <smithtr@cs.ucsb.edu>,

"Vicky Reich" <vreich@sulmail.stanford.edu>,

"Yakov L. Shraiberg" <shra@gpntb.msk.su>,

"Yuri Bukhshtab" <kikom@glasnet.ru>,