The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Dr. Sudha RamSudha Ram Advanced Database Research Group Dept. of MIS The University of Arizona

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Objective u To develop a comprehensive digital library system that facilitates interoperability among heterogeneous resources used in decision making, evaluation and assessment of natural assets used for biodiversity and sustainability

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Key Issues and Challenges Addressed u Interoperability Using Mediators u Support for a “living” digital library (Resource Harvesting) u Address needs of a wide variety of users using Intelligent Agents u Provide Contextual Search Mechanisms

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Architecture of the Saguaro Digital Library

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Components of the Saguaro Digital Library u User Interface Agent (UIA) –Acquires the user background and stores it in the user profile database. –Assists the user in formulating queries (contextual search). –Bilingual interface (English and Spanish). u Broker Agent (BA) –Communicates with supply agents. –Contains high level knowledge of the types of resources available in underlying distributed resources. u Processing Agent (PA) –Assists the user in running analytical models. –Visualizes the output and passes it back to the BA, which, then converts it to the UIA. u Supply Agent (SA) –Stores information about each individual collection of resources. –Contains knowledge about how to access such resources.

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Components of the Saguaro Digital Library u Semantic Mediator (SM) –Resolves data- and schema-level conflicts. –Resolves taxonomic classification and information classification problems. –Uses its conflict resolution ontology to resolve such conflicts. u Metadata repository (MR) –Stores semantic data models that describe concepts in terms that users understand. –Contains description of geospatial resources (NBII Biological Metadata Standard). u Model and Tool Repository (MTR) –Spatial processing tools and algorithms, Mathematical models, Statistical tools, Analytical models, Visualization tools. u Harvesting Agent (HA) –Uses harvesting rule base and harvester profile database to invoke appropriate harvesting tool and to store providers’ profiles and their background, assisting users with contributions to the SDL.

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management u Harvesting Tools Repository (HTR) –Contains online web-based tools (resource collectors) to collect and update resource items. –Uses quality control tools and integrity checkers to determine the quality of the resource and its reliability submitted by the user. –Provides notifiers to inform the appropriate review team when a new resource has been submitted. u Users and Resource Suppliers –K-12 students, college students, federal & state agencies, public and private organizations. u Distributed Resources –A large number and variety resources scattered across various Arizona state agencies, federal agencies and university departments. Components of the Saguaro Digital Library

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Partners u State Agencies –Arizona State Lands Department –Arizona State Cartographer’s Office –Arizona Geological Survey –Arizona Geographic Information Council u Federal Agencies –Department of the Interior USGS Biological Resources Division Sonoran Desert Field Station –Federal Geographic Data Committee –Department of Defense –USDA with the U.S. Forest Service and the ARS Bee Lab –Los Alamos National Laboratory –Department of Agriculture - Rocky Mountain Research Station –National Park Service, Southern Arizona Group and the Nature Conservancy u K-12 Schools –Lawrence Intermediate School –Ft. Lowell Elementary School u University of Arizona Colleges –College of Engineering (Arizona Regional Image Archive, Dept. of Hydrology and Water Resources) –College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Dept. of Geography) –College of Agriculture (Dept. of Arid Land Studies, School of Renewable Natural Resources) –College of Arts and Sciences (Physics and Atmospheric Sciences) –College of Business and Public Administration (MIS) –University of Arizona Library u Industry –Online Computer Library Center, Inc. –Raytheon STX –Simons International Corp. –Oracle Corp.

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Ongoing Projects u USM* (Interoperability, Metadata, Ontology) USM* (Interoperability, Metadata, Ontology) u Intelligent Agents for Image and Multimedia Data Management Intelligent Agents for Image and Multimedia Data Management u SAGE: An Intelligent Agent Toolkit for Discovering and Accessing Distributed Earth Observing Data SAGE: An Intelligent Agent Toolkit for Discovering and Accessing Distributed Earth Observing Data u Data Management for Biodiversity and Conservation Data Management for Biodiversity and Conservation u National Biological Information Infrastructure Data Services National Biological Information Infrastructure Data Services u Dynamic Schema Evolution in Large Heterogeneous Database Environments Dynamic Schema Evolution in Large Heterogeneous Database Environments

The Saguaro Digital Library for Natural Asset Management Contributions u Support heterogeneous, federated collections of digital contents. u Facilitate evolution of digital collections. u Directly support the goals of the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) by developing the capability to share data and resources.