C. Olivia Frost
School of Information
University of Michigan
550 East University
304 West Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092
(313) 763-2285 FAX - (313) 764-2475
cfrost@umich.edu
C. (Carolyn) Olivia Frost is Associate Dean and Professor at the University
of Michigan School of Information. She has been a faculty member at
Michigan since 1977.
Education
Frost earned her B.A. in German Language and Literature from Howard University,
an M.L.S. from the University of Oregon, an M.A. in Germanic Languages and
Literature; and a Ph. D. in Library Science from the University of Chicago.
She studied for a year at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin as a Fulbright
student.
Research and Teaching Areas
Research and teaching areas have focused on the organization of information,
with an emphasis on nontextual materials. Frost is the author of two books
on the organization of non-book materials: Cataloging Nonbook Materials:
Problems in Theory and Practice, Libraries Unlimited, 1983 ; and Media
Access and Organization: A Cataloging and Reference Sources Guide for
Nonbook Materials, Libraries Unlimited, 1989.
As Associate Dean for Professional Programs, Frost oversees the Master's
program at the School of Information and chairs the School's Committee on
the Master's Program. She has been involved in the School's CRISTAL-ED
initiative since the proposal development stage. CRISTAL-ED (Coalition
on Reinventing Information Science, Technology and Library Education has
received generous support for a five-year period by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation
to provide national leadership in educating human resources for the information
professions of the 21st century.
Current Courses include:
SI 523 Organization of Information Resources
SI610 Digital
Resources for Instruction and Learning in K-12 Environments
SI626 Organization of Nontextual Information Resources
Current Research Activities
Frost has three major research projects in progress with deal with broadening
access to digital image materials.
IMAGE RETRIEVAL RESEARCH INITIATIVES
The Art History Image Database Project
designed, implemented and is evaluating a World-Wide Web (WWW)-based
experimental system which uses organizational structures to facilitate browsing
of art images. The research team built a database of approximately 3,000
digitized images from Art History to determine if classification can be
used for retrieving images from a digital database in a networked environment.
A key premise in this research is that browsing can serve an important role
in retrieving image information. The system was evaluated in controlled
tests and through a questionnaire available to WWW users.
The research also stresses the user perspective in the design and testing
of the system. In developing organizational structures, the project team
questioned art history faculty and students - as well as librarians to determine
information needs, patterns of use and information searching practices.
Frost is the principal investigator of this project, which was funded by
the U. S. Department of Education.
Within the UM Digital Libraries Project,
Frost is engaged in research to design systems which increase intellectual
access to digital images by facilitating browsing. The objective of this
project is to investigate content-based image indexing and retrieving methods
as part of the University of Michigan Digital Library Project (UMDL) sponsored
by NSF/NASA/ARPA.
This research will utilize organizational structures as devices to group
image sets into meaningful categories that support browsing. This will incorporate
and build upon research underway by Frost to create and test a classification
and retrieval system that clusters images into browsing categories resulting
in more effective user access.
Frost is Principal Investigator of the Cultural
Heritage Initiative for Community
Outreach (CHICO). The goal of CHICO is to provide leadership in
the education of professionals who can play key roles in making cultural
heritage materials accessible to a broad array of audiences by using information
and collaboration technology. Through partnerships between SI, University
of Michigan colleagues in the arts and humanities, and local museums and
schools, CHICO is creating pilot projects to design, implement, and evaluate
systems and services. Pilot programs provide internships and "living
laboratories" for SI students, cultural outreach services to the Michigan
and larger communities, and test sites for models of future-oriented information
services.
Recent Publications and Conference Presentations
Frost, Carolyn O. and Janes, Joseph W., "An Empirical Test of Gopher
Searching Using Three Organization Schemes," in Navigating the Networks:
Proceedings of the ASIS Mid-Year Meeting, Portland Oregon, May 21-25, 1994,
pp. 84-94.
Birmingham, William P.; Drabenstott, Karen M.; Frost, Carolyn O.; Warner,
Amy J.; Willis, Katherine. "The University of Michigan Digital Library:
This is Not Your Father's Library." in: Schnase, John L., et al., eds.
Proceedings of Digital Libraries '94: The First Annual Conference on
the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries; 1994 June 19-21; College
Station, Texas: Hypermedia Research Laboratory, 1994: 53-60.
"Quality in Technical Services: A User-Centered Definition for Future
Information Environments", Journal of Education for Library and
Information Science, (Summer 1994) Vol. 35, 229-232.
Conference Presentations in 1996
"Making the Renaissance
a Reality: The Power of Digital Technology", National Conference
on African American Theatre, Baltimore, Md., March 29-30, 1996. Give
URL
"Cultural Heritage Initiative for Community
Outreach (CHICO)" , Conference Proceedings, Community Networking
Conference, Taos, N.M., May 14-17, 1996, p.73-78.
" Cultural Heritage Community Information Services at the University
of Michigan School of Information" , Conference Proceedings, Tenth
Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 21-15,
1996, p. 25-34.
"The University of Michigan School of Information Art Image Browser:
Designing and Testing a Model for Image Retrieval", in Knowledge
Organization and Change, Proceedings of the Fourth International ISKO
Conference, 15-18 July 1996, Washington, DC, edited by Rebecca Green. Advances
in Knowledge Organization, Vol. 5 (1996), Frankfurt/Main, Indeks Verlag,
1996, pp. 182-188.
Current Service Activities
Accreditation Review, Chair
Dean's Cabinet
Dean's Advisory Committee
SI Committee on the Master's Program, Chair
SI Committee on the Doctoral Program
SI Curriculum Committee
SI Space Committee
LIS Curriculum Committee
Faculty and Student Services Committee, Chair
UM Committee on A Multicultural University
Visit to Malaysia and Singapore
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Malaysia and Singapore to meet
with alumni in the Southeast Asia area, and to deliver a paper at the Tenth
Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians in Kuala Lumpur. The most gratifying
aspect of the trip was to meet with our graduates - many of whom I'd known
from my classes, and to hear about their work. Raja Abdullah Yaacob, a 1990
graduate of our Ph.D. program, is now Dean of the School of Library and
Information Science, MARA Institute of Technology in Shah Alam, Malaysia,
where I was invited to give a talk. Hamidah Abdul Rahman, a 1987 MILS graduate,
and a student in several of my classes, is a faculty member who teaches
cataloging and was eager to hear how the school has developed courses in
the organization of digital information. In Singapore, I met with Foo Kok
Pheow, a 1965 MLS graduate who heads the Library at Nanyang Technological
University. I was particularly intrigued by a demonstration of their OPAC,
with catalog entries including video clips from their film collection.
Everywhere I went, I encountered enormous interest in the School's activities
and support for the new directions. At the conference in Kuala Lumpur, I
hosted a reception for SI alumni and briefed them on new developments. Many
I talked to were already familiar with the SI activities from our home page,
in particular the Cristal Ed efforts. My conference paper, on the Cultural
Heritage Initiative for Community Outreach (CHICO) generated a great deal
of interest in this and similar SI digital library projects with K-12 applications.
There was considerable interest in sending students to our program, and
with the broadened intellectual venue of our school, we are now able attract
students from a wider variety of disciplines.
Guests at reception for SI Alumni, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 1996
SI Alum Foo Kok Pheow, Director, Nanyang Technical University Library, and
Staff
Singapore, May 1996