Making Lange-Scale Information Resources Serve Communities of
Practice
Catherine C. Marshall, Frank M. Shipman III
Department of Computer Science
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-3112
E-mail: {shipman, marshall}@cs.tamu.edu
Raymond J. McCall
College of Environmental Design & Institute of Cognitive Science
University of Colorado, Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309
E-mail: mccall@spot.colorado.edu
ABSTRACT
Community memory can provide the crucial bridge between large-scale
information bases like digital libraries and the day-to-day activities
of a community's members. Just as a digital library is based on a
general structure and conventional means of access to diverse
collections of materials, a community memory will help cull and shape
the structure and contents of this collection to meet more particular
needs. But it is by no means straightforward for people to collect,
maintain, share, and apply the materials that are part of a community
memory. Useful and usable community memories require support for:
(1) the acquisition and evolution of content and structure; (2) the
identification of materials and community members relevant to a
particular task; and (3) the maintenance of organizations that are
mutually intelligible across the community. In this paper, we
explore issues related to these three requirements based on a
meta-analysis of our collective experiences with the development and
use of shared hypermedia information resources.
KEYWORDS: collaboration, community memory, digital libraries,
electronic community support, hypermedia, information spaces, shared
understanding.