IBM Launches Digital Library Initiative for Complete Multimedia Management
Solutions

Films, music, text, art, manuscripts available to computer users

NEW YORK, March 27, 1995 . . . IBM today launched the IBM Digital Library,
an initiative aimed at helping owners of information content in all its
forms -- including films, music, text, art and rare manuscripts --
maximize their assets and make them available on networks around the
world.

IBM Digital Library will consist of an array of products and services aimed
at helping customers transform information into digital multimedia form
that can be shared with users via networks. The initiative will also give
customers the tools to manage, present and protect that information.

"We're all familiar with the promise of the 'wired world' -- instant,
seamless global access to every conceivable form of information," said
Steve Mills, general manager, IBM Software Solutions. "Yet that world
assumes that all this information is in digital form, and the vast
majority of the world's most valuable content is not. With today's
announcement, IBM intends to establish market leadership by helping owners
of information in all its forms move forward into the digital age."

The IBM Digital Library integrates a wide array of information storage,
management, search, retrieval and distribution technologies, much of which
is available today, into a single architecture. Once digitized,
information can be shared on public networks like the Internet or private
networks like the IBM Global Network. IBM Digital Library solutions will
be completely scalable from a small LAN library in a single format, such
as a photo collection, to huge information repositories consisting of
multiple media types and millions of titles.

Many IBM Digital Library technologies are already being used today by
dozens of customers, such as the Vatican Library, the Indiana University
School of Music and Case Western Reserve University. IBM will work with
its current customers and identify new customers to determine an optimal
set of offerings to bring to the marketplace.

Through its work with early Digital Library customers, IBM has identified,
and will provide solutions for, two of the most pressing concerns
confronting content owners who want to widely distribute their digital
information: powerful search capabilities that enable users to comb
through vast amounts of data to find the specific information they need
quickly and easily; and rights management capabilities that will allow the
owners of information to make their words, sounds and images available
while protecting against unauthorized copying and distribution.

These customers -- including the Archivo General de Indias, the Lutherhalle
Wittenberg, the Los Angeles Public Library and the Institute for
Scientific Information (ISI) -- are finding that accessible information in
a digital library enables broader usage and more productivity, adding
value for both users and those who are managing content, while protecting
against unauthorized copying and distribution.

"The IBM Digital Library is more than a massive database or a
video-on-demand solution," Mills said. "It also will enable a broad range
of development, from Internet applications to interactive TV services.

"As the vehicle to enable owners to transform their traditional information
into secure digitized information, or maximize the value of information
already in digital form, the IBM Digital Library is a crucial component of
IBM's network-centric computing strategy to provide anytime, anywhere
access to information on high-speed voice and data networks."

 An Electronic Metaphor for Traditional Libraries, And More Information has
typically been something physical, such as a book, that can be stored,
indexed and accessed in a traditional library. Today there are many new
forms and definitions for information, such as spreadsheets, movies, rare
paintings, musical recordings, and even a home page on the World Wide Web.
And once information is in digital form, it is usually intangible,
existing only within a computer storage medium such as a diskette or hard
drive.

The IBM Digital Library provides electronic equivalents of a traditional
library structure. This structure is categorized as content creation and
capture; storage and management; search and query techniques for
information access; information distribution and presentation; and rights
management.

Content creation: One of the biggest challenges of the information age has
been turning physical media into digital information. With IBM Digital
Library, paper, photographs, videos and audio recordings can be captured
in a format easily manipulated by computers.

In addition, new digital information can be created using a wide variety of
authoring, recognition, compression and transformation techniques
developed by IBM, or by utilizing products from other vendors.

Storage and management: The IBM Digital Library makes use of electronic
technologies to store and manage vast amounts of information in digital
form. However, the physical location of the information is not an issue
because it will be accessible to users at their convenience from their
offices, homes or anywhere else.

IBM Digital Library supports a wide variety of hardware and software
solutions for storing and managing information, including both IBM and
non-IBM products. Customers will be free to choose the platforms and
operating environments that best suit their existing and future computing
needs without compromising the benefits of an IBM Digital Library
solution.

Search and query techniques: Once physical media is in a digital format, it
must be enriched so it can be effectively organized for searches.
Information management features of the IBM Digital Library include
automated indexing, foldering, correlation, feature extraction and
translation functions. Users are provided with advanced organization and
filtering tools so they can customize and personalize their information
searches in their national languages.

In addition to traditional text and numerical descriptions, multimedia data
can be searched using new technologies to comb through visual information
by looking for specific patterns, shapes and colors.

Information distribution and presentation: Information owners can elect to
distribute the materials from an IBM Digital Library in numerous ways:
through any existing network, client/server business solutions, commercial
online services or interactive television solutions.

IBM Digital Library also supports the creation and use of dynamic,
integrated formats for information presentation. These include "walk up"
interfaces such as those found on touch-screen kiosks, as well as more
natural, human approaches that will include speech recognition and audio
and video interaction.

Rights management: Providing access to digitized information through the
network poses tremendous challenges in terms of minimizing the
unauthorized distribution of information and protecting the rights of the
owners of this information.

IBM Digital Library will offer the industry's most effective rights
management technologies for digital information. IBM has developed
advanced authentication, royalties management, encryption and watermarking
technologies which allow users secure access to the information stored in
a Digital Library, as well as authorized distribution.

Consulting and Services Available

IBM will offer an extensive set of consulting, systems integration and
operational services designed to deliver customers end-to-end solutions
utilizing the IBM Digital Library technologies. While some components of
IBM Digital Library, such as rights management functions and advanced
search tools, are exclusive to IBM, customers will be able to integrate
hardware and software solutions from other vendors.

Images and more information about the IBM Digital Library can be found on
the World Wide Web on the IBM Home Page (http://www.ibm.com) and the IBM
Software Page (click on "Products and Services" on the IBM Home Page).

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