Unified Citation Management and Visualization Using Open Standards

Scientific research is hindered when there are artificial barriers preventing the efficient and straightforward sharing of bibliographic information. In today's computing world, the barriers take the form of incompatible bibliographic formats and constraining operating-system and vendor dependencies. These incompatible platforms isolate the respective camps. In this chapter, we demonstrate and discuss a new approach to unify citation management: the Open Citation System (OCS). OCS uses open XML standards and Java-component technologies. By providing converter tools to migrate citations to a centralized hub in BiblioML format (an XML tag set based on the UniMARC standard), we then make use of XML topic maps to provide an extensible framework for visualization. We take as an example the ACM classification code and show how the OCS system displays citations in a convenient focus and context hyperbolic tree interface. We conclude by discussing future directions planned to extend the OCS system and how open citation management can supply an important piece in our inexorable march toward a worldwide digital library.