CALL FOR PAPERS Special Issue on Very Large Digital Libraries (VLDL) Int'l J. of Digital Libraries (IJDL) http://pike.psu.edu/ijdl07/ As the number of digital libraries increases and their scale grows rapidly, it is timely and critical to address research issues in such large-scale digital libraries. This is evidenced by the recent proliferation of articles and talks that concern scaling issues in the context of digital libraries, and the growing interests of other areas of computer science investigating problems that are of interest to the DL community. Very large digital libraries also emerge from the commercial sector in recent years. These are examples of digital libraries with a very large number of digital objects (i.e., articles and their metadata). One can also imagine a meta digital library that consists of a very large number of independent digital libraries, or a digital library that draws a very large number of users (e.g., SkyServer). It is also quite possible for a digital library to have all of these scaling perspectives - large number of objects, underlying digital libraries, and users. Recognizing the importance of research in this area, the International Journal on Digital Libraries is organizing a special issue on Very Large Digital Libraries (VLDL). The special issue will focus on high-quality original unpublished research, case studies as well as implementation experiences and survey articles in the area of computational aspects of Digital Libraries that emphasize on techniques that have been or can be applied to the creation, maintenance and usage of large-scale digital libraries. Suggested topics include but are not limited to: - Automated collection development - Automated metadata extraction, classification, cleaning, matching and maintenance - Automated terminological and named entity processing - Automated analysis of patrons' queries - Creation and maintenance of large DLs - Efficient data distribution and transmission of DL resources - Recommendation in DLs - Design frameworks and architectural issues of large DLs - Collaborative environments in DLs - Large scale integration and federation of DLs - User interface design for dealing with complexity of DLs - Quality of service and load balancing in large multimedia DLs - Heterogeneity issues with respect to structure, media or language in DLs - Interoperability and service-oriented architecture - Role of government initiatives in the generation of VLDLs Instructions for submitting manuscripts: Manuscripts must be written in English and should include a cover page with title, name and address (including e-mail address) of author(s), an abstract, and a list of identifying keywords. In particular, the special issue solicits two types of original and unpublished manuscripts: - Regular article reports completed VLDLs works (8-10 pages) - Short or Vision article covers recent, work-in-progress, high impact work of VLDLs (2-4 pages) Submission must be properly formatted in the IJDL format. Papers will be subject to two rounds of review. Please indicate that you are submitting to the special issue on Very Large Digital Libraries. Manuscripts must be submitted directly to the guest editors by email. Important Dates: - July 1, 2007 : Due date for submission of manuscripts - October 1, 2007 : Notification of acceptance/rejection - December 10, 2007 : Due date for camera-ready version - March, 2008 : Tentative date for publication of Special Issue Editors of the Special Issue: Min-Yen Kan National University of Singapore kanmy@comp.nus.edu.sg Dongwon Lee Penn State University dongwon@psu.edu Ee-Peng Lim Nanyang Technological University aseplim@ntu.edu.sg About the Journal: The aim of IJDL is to advance the theory and practice of acquisition, definition, organization, management and dissemination of digital information via global networking. In particular, the journal will emphasize technical issues in digital information production, management and use, issues in high-speed networks and connectivity, inter-operability, and seamless integration of information, people, profiles, tasks and needs, security and privacy of individuals and business transactions and effective business processes in the Information Age. More information about the journal can be found at http://www.dljournal.org/