LIRA designs, builds, and maintains applications which provide access to collections of information, both in printed and electronic form. We have built large, integrated applications, such as the UW Library Catalog and WiscINFO, the UW-Madison Web service. Our users are primarily at the UW-Madison and the CIC, and do include others in higher education.

Library, Instructional & Retrieval Applications
DoIT Domain

Data objects are collections of books, journals, instructional resources, learning objects, reference materials, documents, catalog listings, recordings, artworks, and any associated "metadata" or structured descriptive information. These collections may include their full digital contents (plain and structured text, images, graphics, video, audio, and course modules) and may be enhanced with searchable indexes and catalogs. Integrated applications typically store, organize, retrieve, deliver via the Web, manage, and track usage of these objects, and create "metadata" or catalogs; separate tools or integrated features may create or capture the full digital contents.

Scope includes library catalogs, library management systems, electronic/digital library applications, materials booking and course reserves systems, web-based learning systems, instructional management systems, learning module cataloging/retrieval systems, metadata repositories, museum/archives systems, full-text indexing/searching and thesaurus solutions, document delivery systems, journal citation databases, document-based campus-wide information systems and departmental equivalents, dissertation/thesis collections, and other electronic texts and journals.

Library applications include Voyager, MadCat, WebZ, NLS/NOTIS, Electronic Library web service, licensed databases from Wilson, SilverPlatter, Beilstein/MDL, electronic texts in SGML, and CIC Virtual Electronic Library. Instructional applications include UW-wide WebCT Utility, planned Academic Course Web service and Instructional Resources Repository, and emerging Instructional Management Systems packages. Information Retrieval applications include WiscINFO, UW-Madison Web and Departmental Web service, Internet Resources directory, DoITNet, and numerous custom web-based applications and custom search engines. Metadata examples include Library (MARC and DC), Instructional (IMS), Web (XML and RDF), and other (GIS).