People frequently must sort through and identify relevant materials from a large set of documents, such as looking through the results of a web search. During this process of document triage there is reading and organizing activity. Moreover, these tasks can occur in different applications. A user's interests can be identified from reading and organizing activity and used as a basis for providing cues to other potential documents of interest in the set. To most effectively identify related documents of interest, activity data must be collected from all applications used in document triage. In this paper we present a common framework (the Interest Profile Manager) for collecting and analyzing user interest. We also present models for identifying user interest based only on reading activity, only on organizing activity, and models incorporating both reading and organizing activity. A study comparing document values calculated using the different models shows that incorporating interest information from both reading and organizing activity more accurately estimates users' valuation of documents than using either type of activity alone.

Document triage is the practice of quickly determining the merit and disposition of relevant documents. This practice involves selection of documents from a document overview and quick forms of reading: skimming, reading short portions of a longer document, and navigating through headings, indices, and tables of contents. Earlier studies of document triage practice showed considerable overhead related to window management during transitions between the document overview and reading interfaces. This study examines the impact of multiple display configurations on document triage practice. In particular, it compares (1) configurations with same and different size displays, and (2) configurations with and without user control over which activity is performed on which display. Results show a significant increase in the number of transitions between activities when a multi-display configuration is introduced although there is no significant difference between the different multiple display configurations. Additionally, user activity with a document was positively correlated with an overall assessment of document value.

Digital libraries need to facilitate the use of digital information in a variety of settings. One approach to making information useful is to enable its application to situations unanticipated by the original author. Walden's Paths is designed to enable authors to collect, organize, and annotate information from on‐line collections for presentation to their readers. Experiences with the use of Walden's Paths in high‐school classrooms have identified four needs/issues: (1) better support for the gradual authoring of paths by teachers, (2) support for student authoring of paths including the ability for students to collaborate on paths, (3) more obvious distinction between content of the original source materials and that added by the path author, and (4) support for maintaining paths over an evolving set of source documents. These observed needs have driven the development of new versions of Walden's Paths. Additionally, the experiences with path authoring have led to a conceptualization of metadocuments, documents whose components include complete documents, as a general domain where issues of collaboration, intellectual property, and maintenance are decidedly different from traditional document publication.

Creating, maintaining, or using a digital library requires the manipulation of digital documents. Information workspaces provide a visual representation allowing users to collect, organize, annotate, and author information. The Visual Knowledge Builder (VKB) helps users access, collect, annotate, and combine materials from digital libraries and other sources into a personal information workspace. VKB has been enhanced to include direct search interfaces for NSDL and Google. Users create a visualization of search results while selecting and organizing materials for their current activity. Additionally, metadata applicators have been added to VKB. This interface allows the rapid addition of metadata to documents and aids the user in the extraction of existing metadata for application to other documents. A study was performed to compare the selection and organization of documents in VKB to the commonly used tools of a Web browser and a word processor. This study shows the value of visual workspaces for such effort but points to the need for subdocument level objects, ephemeral visualizations, and support for moving from visual representations to metadata.