Visualising semantic spaces and author co-citation networks in digital libraries

This paper describes the development and application of visualisation techniques for users to access and explore information in a digital library effectively and intuitively. Salient semantic structures and citation patterns are extracted from several collections of documents, including the ACM SIGCHI Conference Proceedings (1995-1997) and ACM Hypertext Conference Proceedings (1987-1998), using Latent Semantic Indexing and Pathfinder Network Scaling. The unique spatial metaphor leads to a natural combination of search and navigation within the same semantic space in a 3-dimensional virtual world. Author co-citation patterns are visualised through a number of author co-citation maps in attempts to reveal the structure of the hypertext, including an overall co-citation map of 367 authors and three periodical maps. These maps highlight predominant research areas in the field. This approach provides a means for transcending the boundaries of collections of documents and visualising more profound patterns in terms of semantic structures and co-citation networks. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.