ELibrary, EGovernment, and ECommerce: Common Threads and New Opportunities

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E-Library, E-Government, and E-Commerce Common
Threads and New Opportunities
Hsinchun Chen, Ph.D. McClelland Professor of MIS
University of Arizona

• PI, NSF Digital Library Initiative-1, DLI-2,
  NSDL (National Science
• Digital Library) Director, Artificial
  Intelligence Lab
• PI, NSF Digital Government Program
• Director, Hoffman E-Commerce Lab PI, SAP,
  HP research Programs

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• Introduction
• The Internet is changing the way we live and
• do business.
• Opportunities for libraries, governments, and
  businesses
• to better deliver its contents and services
  and interact with
• its many constituents citizens, patrons,
  businesses, and
• other government partners.
• Exciting and innovative transformation could
  occur with the
• new technologies and practices in addition
  to providing
• information, communication, and transaction
  services.
• Review and comparison but with more focus on
  digital library
• and digital government.

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• Digital Library Characteristics
• No need to leave the home or office
• information now readily available on-line
• via digital gateways furnished by a wide
• variety of information providers.
• Information is multimedia
• electronically available in a wide variety
• of formats, many of which are large,
• complex (i.e., video and audio),
• and often integrated.

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• Digital LibraryCharacteristics (continued)
• Interface to the Web has evolved from browsing to
  searching but the commercial technology has
  remained largely unchanged from its roots in the
  1960s. New research presents new opportunities.
• Social impact matters as much as technological
  advancement DL projects need to examine the
  broad social, economic, legal, ethical, and
  cross-cultural contexts and impacts.

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• DLI-1, DLI-2, NSDL, JCDL, ECDL, and ICADL
  Towards Building A Global Digital Library
• NSF Digital Library Initiative Phase 1 (DLI-1),
  1994-1998
• NSF CISE/IIS Special Program, 24M, NSF,
• DARPA, NASA funding Six projects Stanford,
  
• Berkeley, UCSB, Michigan, CMU, UIUC.
• Technology focus, new and rich library
  content Bi-annual site visits and project
  meetings. Special activities IEEE Computer,
  CACM, JASIS special issues, and many books and
  book chapters.

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• DLI-1, DLI-2, NSDL, JCDL, ECDL, and ICADL
  Towards Building A Global Digital Library
  (continued)
• NSF Digital Library Initiative
• Phase 2 (DLI-2), 1998-
• NSF CISE/IIS Special Program, 60M, 1998-
• NSF, DARPA, NLM, LoC, NASA, NEH 20
  projects Stanford, Berkeley, UCSB, CMU, Arizona,
  and many others.
• Strong focus on integration of technologies,
  contents, and service. Annual NSF all-PI meeting
  with JCDL.

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• DLI-1, DLI-2, NSDL, JCDL, ECDL, and ICADL
  Towards Building A Global Digital Library
  (continued)
• National Science Digital Library (NSDL), 2000-
• NSF CISE/IIS Special Program, 45M, 60
  projects
• Strong education focus in many different
  application domains.
• Annual NSF all-PI meeting in DC. Core
  Integration effort Cornell (Open Archive
  Initiative), UCAR, U. Mass., etc.
• Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL),
  1996-
• ACM DL Conferences and IEEE DL Conferences,
  1996-2000.
• JCDL 2001, Virginia, E. Fox JCDL 2002,
  Oregon, G. Marchionini NSF DLI-2 all-PI meeting
  held after JCDL.

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• DLI-1, DLI-2, NSDL, JCDL, ECDL, and ICADL
  Towards Building A Global Digital Library
  (continued)
• European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL),
  1997-
• Many working group meetings held in different
• DL sub-areas.
• ECDL 2002, Rome, Italy, C. Thanos.
• International Conference of Asian Digital
  Libraries (ICADL), 1998-
• ICADL 1998, Hong Kong, J. Yen ICADL 1999,
  Taipei,
• Taiwan, Hsueh-hua Chen ICADL 2000, Seoul,
  Korea, Key-Sun Choi
• ICADL 2001, Bangalore, India, Shalini R. Urs
  (600 people) ICADL
• 2002, Singapore, S. Foo and E. Lim.
• Local content, cultural heritage, education
  and deployment,
• multilingual retrieval, other new
  technologies Many other national
• programs China, Russia, Japan, etc.

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• Digital Library Challenges
• Cultural and historical heritage
• Many digital library and museum
• collections contain artifacts that
• are fragile, precious, and of historical
  significance.
• Heterogeneity of content and media types
• Digital library collections have the widest
• range of content and media types,
• ranging from 3D chemical structures
• to tornado simulation models, from the
• statue of David to paintings of Van Gogh.

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• Digital Library Challenges (continued)
• Intellectual property issues
• Unlike digital government or e-commerce
  applications
• that often derive their own content, digital
  libraries
• provide content management and retrieval
  services
• to many different information creators.
• Cost and sustainability issues
• Many patrons often would like library
  services
• to be free or at least extremely
  affordable.
• Universal access and international collaboration
  
• Digital library content is often of interest
  to not just
• people in one region, but possibly all over
  the world.

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• Digital Government Characteristics
• Multi-faceted roles of Federal Government
• Government as a major user of information
• technologies, a collector and maintainer of
• very large data sets, and a provider of
  critical
• and often unique information services to
• individuals, states, businesses, and other
  customers.
• Potential for nearly ubiquitous access
• to government information services by
  citizen/customers
• Re-inventing the government
• Enhancements derived from new information
  technology-based services can be expected to
  contribute to reinvented and economical
  government services, and more productive
  government employees.

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• Digital Government US Government Goes Electronic
• 1986 Brooks Act amended
• reducing government costs through
• volume buying, including IT purchases.
• 1996 Information Technology Management Reform
  Act Establishing the CIO position to manage IT
  resources.
• 1998 WebGov portal announced in August 1998,
  failed and replaced by FirstGov portal after
  technology donation from Inktomi.
• 2000 Federal Rehabilitation Act
• Requiring all IT products be accessible to
  the disabled.

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• Digital Government US Government
• Goes Electronic (continued)
• 2000 FirstGov portal unveiled in June 2000.
• 2001 National Security Telecommunications and
  Information Systems Security Policy No. 11
• Mandating off-the-shelf software used in
  defense be evaluated by an approved third party
  (NSA).
• 2001 Health Insurance Portability and
  Accountability Act (HIPPA)
• Requiring health care information in
  compliance with privacy regulations
• 2002 E-Government Act
• Funding additional e-government initiatives
  and creating Office of Electronic Government.

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• Digital Government Research Programs
• NSF DG Program, 1998- areas such as law
  enforcement
• information sharing, citizen access to
  government statistical
• data, and comprehensive emergency management
  Digital Government Research Center (DGRC) and
  annual NSF-sponsored Digital Government
  Conference
• EU areas such as online public service for
  information content politics, e-democracy,
  e-voting transactions, security, and digital
  signatures for e-government.
• Other regions Many successful and ongoing
  e-government initiatives have also emerged in
  Asia and Pan-Pacific countries such as China,
  Singapore, Japan, Korea India, New Zealand,
  Australia, etc. E-government projects in Latin
  American countries have also been reported.

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• Digital Government Challenges
• E-commerce is not at the heart of e-government
• The core task of government
• is governance, the job of regulating
• society, not marketing and sales.
• Organizational and cultural inertia
• Most government entities are not known for
  their
• efficiency or willingness to adopt changes.
• Government laws and legal regulations
• Although well-intended, such laws and
  regulations
• often inhibit innovation or thinking
  out-of-the-box.

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• Digital Government Challenges (continued)
• Security and privacy issues
• Government-provided services have an extra
  burden of guaranteeing security and privacy for
  citizens.
• Disparate and out-dated information
  infrastructure and systems Many government
  departments at all levels often face budget
  shortfalls for years.
• Lack of IT funding and personnel
• Some government units (local, state, and
  federal) are
• affluent, but most are not. IT spending often
  is not a priority.

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• E-Commerce Characteristics
• Business/commercial initiatives From Fortune 500
  companies to Internet start-ups, from self-funded
  dotcoms to ventures funded by influential VCs
  (unlike digital library or digital government
  research).
• Quick evolution and extensive coverage in many
  magazines and newspapers Business Process
  Re-Engineering (BPR),
• Total Quality Management (TQM), Enterprise
  Resource Planning (ERP), Supply-Chain Management
  (SCM),
• Knowledge Management (KM), Customer
• Relation Management (CRM), etc.

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• E-Commerce Challenges
• Internet time or library/government time In a
• competitive business environment, Internet
  time
• often demands a business to act on its instinct
  and
• to take risks.
• Build it, but will they come With the intense
  business pressure to perform and significant
  injection of funding (at least before the
  Internet bubble burst), many companies invest
  significantly in major Internet-based e-commerce
  infrastructure and product initiatives.
• True innovations or marketing hypes With the
  fast moving and sometimes impulsive business
  behaviors, marketing hypes are often disguised as
  true innovations.

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• The Information-Communication-Transaction-Transfor
  mation (ICTT) Continuum The Path to Innovation
• Information content (e-library)
• Communication interaction (e-government)
• Transaction process and rule (e-commerce)
• Transformation innovation (all)

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• ICTT Information
• Definition Library, government or business
• information is created, categorized, and
• indexed and delivered to its target audiences
• through the Internet.
• Core competency of digital library research and
  services metadata generation, data creation and
  management, content management, interoperability,
  system interfaces, etc.
• Many early G2C (government-to-citizen), G2B
  (government-to-business), and B2C services
  deliver information only governments and
  business portals act as information (about
  regulations and products) providers.

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• ICTT Communication
• Definition
• E-services support two-way communication,
  whereby customers or citizens can communicate
  their needs or
• requests through web forms, email, or other
  Internet media.
• Core function for e-government
• by providing effective communication
  channels to citizens.
• Many early B2C, G2C and G2B applications quickly
  evolved into such communication services
• by adding simple web-based groupware
  functionalities such as web forms, email,
  bulletin boards, chat rooms, etc.
• Computer-Supported Collaborative Systems (or
  groupware) and recommender systems
• can significantly improve communication
  services for all digital library, digital
  government, and e-commerce applications.

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• ICTT Transaction
• Definition
• Citizens and businesses are supported in
  conducting transactions.
• Transaction is the essence of e-commerce
• You are not successful unless they buy.
  Many businesses support transactions among their
  suppliers (B2B) or customers (B2C) through ERP,
  SCM, and CRM systems.
• Digital government could support citizen
  transactions
• such as income tax filing returns,
  municipal service requests and tracking, business
  license applications and payments, etc.
• Significant adaptation needed for e-government
  and digital library
• to be cost-effective for non-commercial
  applications. (Most governments and libraries
  cannot afford SAP R3!)

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• ICTT Continuum Transformation
• Definition
• There is an opportunity for the
  transformation
• of practices and services delivered from
  libraries,
• government agencies, and businesses.
• Digital libraries
• Traditional libraries need to re-examine
  their content management and service delivery
  assumptions and practices.
• E-Commerce
• Business consulting professionals are
  creating new methodology and best practices to
  take advantage of the new business opportunities.
  
• E-government
• New information technologies and innovative
  processes could significantly enhance many facets
  of the governments, e.g., e-politics and
  e-voting, law enforcement and litigation support,
  etc.

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• The Future
• Many active and high-impact research
• opportunities for researchers in
• information science, library science,
• computer science, public policy,
• and management information systems.
• Digital library, digital government, and
  e-commerce researchers are well positioned to
  become the agents of transformation for the new
  Net of the 21st century.