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Jerome H. Saltzer, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering |
Library 2000 is a research project that is exploring the system engineering of future on-line libraries. The project's approach is pragmatic: to develop, build, and prime with data a prototype testbed of an on-line electronic library using the technology and system configurations expected to be economically feasible in the year 2000. The initial data is the accumulated collection of M. I. T. Computer Science Technical Reports, in the form of scanned images.
Our basic hypothesis is that the technology of on-line storage, display, and communications will soon make it economically possible to place the entire contents of any library on-line and make them accessible from computer workstations located anywhere. Our vision is that one will be able to browse any book, journal, paper, thesis, or report using an ordinary personal computer, and follow citations by pointing--the report or paper selected should pop up immediately in an adjacent window.
Our goal is not to invent or develop any of these evolving technologies, but rather to work out how to harness them. The engineering and deployment of large-scale systems is always accompanied by traps and surprises beyond those apparent in the component technologies. Typical research topics include discovering wanted items, robustly linking to information across the network, and making on-line information endure, reliably, for decades.