Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
15
Utopia Documents: transforming
how industrial scientists interact
with the scientifi c literature
Steve Pettifer, Terri Attwood, James Marsh
and Dave Thorne
Abstract:
The number of articles published in the scientifi c literature
continues to grow at an alarming rate, making it increasingly
diffi cult for researchers to fi nd key facts. Although electronic
publications and libraries make it relatively easy to access articles,
working out which ones are important, how their content relates to
the growing number of online databases and resources, and making
this information easily available to colleagues remains challenging.
We present Utopia Documents, a visualization tool that provides a
fresh perspective on the scientifi c literature.
Key words:
semantic publishing; visualization; PDF; collaborative
systems.
It is a curious fact that, throughout history, man's capacity to create
knowledge has far outstripped his ability to disseminate, assimilate,
and exploit that knowledge effectively. Until recently, the bottleneck
was very much a physical one, with hand-written scrolls, and
then printed manuscripts and topics, being deposited in libraries
to which access was limited, either by politics, social factors, or
simply the need to physically travel to a particular location in order
to access the content. Digital technologies have not solved the
problem - and, it could be argued, have in some ways made matters
worse.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search