1. NASA Technical Report Server (NTRS) Project Overview April 2, 2003
JoAnne Rocker and Michael L. Nelson, PhD

2. Meeting Agenda NTRS History and Challenges New NTRS
NTRS and OAI Architecture
OAI is Mechanism for Aggregation
OAI use across the Agency TRS’s
NTRS DLs in the larger STI Realm
New NTRS and Buckets
New NTRS and Hypertext Linking
New NTRS and Search Enhanced Functionality
Project Timeline
NTRS Demo

3. NTRS History and Challenges
Started in 1994
Built using WAIS
Meta-search engine – no data on NTRS
~400K hits a month
Hosted by Langley Library
Challenges
No major upgrade or re-design of system
Nodes go down and slow search down
Content mostly citations – users want full-text
Highly visited site but no real understanding of how users interact with system

4. New NTRS http://ntrs.nasa.gov New system Belvedere (RM 2061)
Sun Solaris 450 Server
MySQL, Perl, OAI
Server checked and approved by IT Security
Distinguishing features of the new NTRS
OAI
Buckets
Hypertext-linking evaluative service

5. NTRS OAI Architecture User NTRS . . . All searching, browsing,
etc. performed on
the metadata here
User
Individual nodes can
still support direct user
interaction
search for “cfd
applications”
NTRS
local copy of
metadata
metadata harvested
offline, through
OAI interface
each node
independently
maintained
. . .
LTRS
ATRS
GTRS
CASITRS
content (reports) remain archived at the local sites

6. OAI is Mechanism for Aggregation
Fundamental difference between current NTRS and new NTRS – It’s an aggregator of STI, ie, it harvests other collections, stores metadata, and maintains a permanent record of relevant aerospace STI

7. OAI use across the Agency TRS’s
OAI and Agency technical report servers
JR & MLN arranged several meetings with centers to discus moving away from WAIS to OAI
JSC, Langley, and Marshall implemented OAI
Ames, KSC, and Stennis quit support for TRS’s
Glenn, GISS and JPL have plans to use OAI
Goddard expressed little interest in OAI
CASI informed about the TRS’s move to OAI but STIPO did not ask them to be OAI-compliant because of re-engineering tasks

8. NASA DLs in the Larger STI Realm
Publishers
Universities
DOD
International
. . .
DOE
this could be a fully
connected graph
NTRS
LTRS
ATRS
CASITRS …
NTRS could also harvest
metadata from other DLs,
and provide access to
non-NASA content.
We hope to influence
the direction of the
science.gov effort to use
OAI-PMH
NTRS could also be a
data provider from the
point of view of other
DLs; allowing the
harvesting of NASA
report metadata.

9. New NTRS and Buckets New NTRS, first phase harvests only metadata
New NTRS, second phase will also include harvesting / backup copies of full-text
Full-text records will be stored in buckets, both for internal use and for re-export and preservation
Current bucket research involves automatic preservation:
migration: moving to new formats, standards
refreshing: keeping lots of copies of the bits
Cf. current mirroring arrangement with Cranfield University (UK)
uses OAI-PMH to signal changes in the metadata
heuristics for copying full-text
(not scalable)
possibility of missed updates

10. New NTRS and Hypertext Linking
“Evaluation of Digital Library Impact and User Communities by Analysis of Usage Patterns”, Bollen & Luce, D-Lib Magazine 8(6), 2002
Creating the document networks in real-time:
“Adaptive Networks of Smart Objects”, Bollen & Nelson, ICPP 02

11. New NTRS and Enhanced Search Functionality
Upgraded system allows for improved user services
More precise searching of data
Added functionality for manipulating results
Quicker response time
Better security and reliability
Simple search
Google-like feel and look
Performs keyword search
Implicit Boolean “AND” between terms
Simple search screen

12. New NTRS and Enhanced Search Functionality
Advanced search provides fielded searching, sorting results, and selecting content sources for search retrieval.

13. Project Timeline
Web-enabled search interface for NTRS repository – March 10, 2003
NTRS and NACA TRS OAI-compliant repositories using the 1.0 and 2.0 versions of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Harvesting Metadata – March 31, 2003
Administrative toolset (includes scheduler configuration; harvester configuration; harvester logs; delete operations; update records; duplicate detection; search interface help; usage logs) for NTRS - April 30, 2003
Adaptive hypertext linking mechanisms incorporated into the NTRS – May 30, 2003
Conversion of NACA images files for inclusion into NACA TRS – May 31, 2003
Web-enabled search interface for NACA TRS repository – June 16, 2003
Adaptive hypertext linking mechanisms incorporated into the NACA TRS – August 31, 2003
Administrative toolset (includes scheduler configuration; harvester configuration; harvester logs; delete operations; update records; duplicate detection; search interface help; usage logs) for NACA TRS – August 31, 2003
Proposal and implementation plan optimizing bucket technology in creating autonomous complex objects for large multimedia and multidisciplinary collections – August 31, 2003
Final Report (complete source code documentation for NTRS and NACA TRS) - September 30, 2003

14. NTRS in Real Time
Live Demo!