Using RFID and dynamic metadata in an educational digital library

In order to provide digital library services to those users whose location is constantly changing, whose network connections are through a wireless medium, and whose computing power includes RFID technology we introduce some aspects that need to be considerate in the development of a RFID-based DL infrastructure for e-learning. In this paper, we identify issues that arise when users are mobile, classify queries that are specific to mobile users and introduce an architecture that supports flexible and transparent access to digital libraries for mobile users with the usage of RFID tags. The main features of this architecture include a layered data representation, support of adaptability, dual broadcast and on demand querying-based RFID tags, caching, and mobile-specific user interfaces. The diversity of these interfaces, plus the volume and dynamism of the digital content's underlying collections, results in a complexity that has the potential to make digital elements unwieldy for the user. In order to assist users in dealing with this complexity, we are designing environments, termed collaborative personal and group spaces, which provide users with means to access and control all available resources in a uniform fashion from a single vantage point. We discuss our ongoing design and development experiences as well as initial usage results.