Linking Social Networking Sites to Scholarly Information Portals by ScholarLib

TL;DR

This paper introduces ScholarLib, a bi-directional linking model that connects social networking sites with scholarly digital libraries to improve access and retrieval of scholarly information through social context.

Contribution

It proposes a novel bi-directional model, ScholarLib, enabling integration between SNSs and DLs to enhance scholarly information sharing and retrieval.

Findings

Initial use cases demonstrate feasibility.

ScholarLib improves retrieval quality at DLs.

Enhanced sharing of scholarly content on SNSs.

Abstract

Online Social Networks usually provide no or limited way to access scholarly information provided by Digital Libraries (DLs) in order to share and discuss scholarly content with other online community members. The paper addresses the potentials of Social Networking sites (SNSs) for science and proposes initial use cases as well as a basic bi-directional model called ScholarLib for linking SNSs to scholarly DLs. The major aim of ScholarLib is to make scholarly information provided by DLs accessible at SNSs, and vice versa, to enhance retrieval quality at DL side by social information provided by SNSs.