UVA: 3D Representations for Visualizing Digital Collections

This paper describes UVA (U-DL-A Visualization Aid), a visualization tool that helps in the exploration of very large digital collections. This is made possible through representations of three-dimensional trees, which visually group categories or topics of objects included in a digital library. UVA also presents alternative solutions for various problems such as the manipulation of search results and multilingual access to collections, facilitating the user's comprehension and awareness of every aspect of the library. The system we implemented can be used practically from anywhere in the world, as it requires only an Web browser. This feature allows for learning and sharing of knowledge among scientists and the general public. UVA is part of an initiative termed U-DL-A (University Digital Libraries for All), which proposes open digital collections to be shared among universities. The paper also discusses results from usability tests as well as advantages and current limitations to be addressed by future work.