Exploiting Information Graphics in a Digital Library

Corpora GRSolr: Intelligent Graph Retrieval Search Engine Publications Relevant Other Publications

Overview:

The aim of this project is to investigate a method for retrieving information graphics (such as bar charts, line graphs, and grouped bar charts) from a digital library in response to user queries. Information retrieval research has focused on the text of documents, and their information graphics have largely been ignored despite the fact that they contain significant knowledge that is often not repeated in the document's text.

Our focus is on information graphics from popular media, which generally have a high-level message that they are intended to convey. We hypothesize that this intended message should play a significant role in a graph retrieval system, since it captures the high-level content of the graphic. Thus in ranking graphics for retrieval, we will investigate a methodology that takes into account the graphic's intended message, the graphic's caption, and relevant portions of the textual article that accompanies the graphic.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number III-1016916. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The project is a collaborative effort with Millersville University under award number III-1016900

Personnel

Project Duration: 9/1/2010 to 8/31/2015

Broader Impacts: Besides its research contributions to digital libraries, in conjunction with our development of the SIGHT system for conveying information graphics via speech, the project will expand the knowledge resources available to individuals with sight impairments. In addition, the project is contributing to the education of both graduate and undergraduate students, one of whom is female and two of whom are first-generation college students.

Point of Contact: Sandra Carberry (carberry@cis.udel.edu)

Last updated: July, 2014