The Universal Knowledge System (UKS) is the Perspective Research Centre framework for bringing collections of books, papers and other documents into a single searchable research environment.
Its purpose is not simply to find documents. The UKS is designed to help a researcher move from a Library or Collection, through Search Results, to the relevant pages and passages in the original sources, and then examine selected material in context.
The basic structure
Global Library → Collections → Publications → Search → Results → Contextual exploration
The Global Library is the complete body of material available through the UKS. It is organised into one or more Collections. A Collection may represent an archive, project library, subject grouping or another coherent body of publications.
The Kim Veltman Archive is the first major PRC Collection being developed as a full working prototype of the UKS.
Search and source material
The UKS is designed to preserve the connection between a Search Match and the original publication in which it occurs. Search Results can therefore lead from a matching publication to matching pages and then into the source document itself.
Multi-Context exploration
Selected publications can be opened in Context Windows for side-by-side reading and comparison. A Context Window can open at a particular Search Match while still allowing the researcher to move through the surrounding source material.
This makes it possible to compare passages from several publications without repeatedly leaving one document to find another.
Organisation and classification
The UKS is being designed as an extensible knowledge environment. Collections provide one level of organisation, while metadata, subjects, topics, tags and relationships can provide further ways to organise and connect Content Units.
The deeper Library classification structure is still under active research and development. It is deliberately not being frozen at this stage, so that the system can evolve as PRC’s work on library science, classification, indexing and knowledge organisation develops.
Public language and design language
Users do not need to learn the complete internal design vocabulary of the UKS. The public interface concentrates on a small number of practical actions: choose a Collection or the Global Library, search, review the results, open relevant material and explore it in context.
More technical terms such as Content Target, Target Context and Search Context belong primarily to the underlying design model.
Current status
The UKS is a live system under active development. The present implementation already supports Library Collections, full-text Library Search, publication-level results, matching-page results and side-by-side Context Windows. Further organisation, classification and relationship features will be added as the architecture develops.
For practical instructions, see How to Use the UKS →