Interacting with spatiotemporal digital libraries

Spatiotemporal digital libraries have special characteristics that have to be taken into account when analysing user interaction requirements. By spatiotemporal libraries, we mean digital data repositories where the data as well as user queries and retrievals are focused predominantly on the space and time dimensions. The paper analyses the particular requirements for user interactions in this broad application domain, and discusses principles underlying the STepLib data model that enhances the accessibility of geo-referenced data libraries. The data model as well as the associated interaction model are generic and encompass most combinations of data and type formats that arise in these libraries.