Integrating information seeking and structuring: exploring the role of spatial hypertext in a digital library

This paper presents Garnet, a novel spatial hypertext interface to a digital library. Garnet supports both information structuring - via spatial hypertext - and traditional information seeking - via a digital library. A user study of Garnet is reported, together with an analysis of how the organizing work done by users in a spatial hypertext workspace could support later information seeking. The use of Garnet during the study is related to both digital library and spatial hypertext research. Spatial hypertexts support the detection of implicit document groups in a user's workspace. The study also investigates the degree of similarity found in the full text of documents within such document groups.