Math information retrieval: User requirements and prototype implementation

We report on the user requirements study and preliminary implementation phases in creating a digital library that indexes and retrieves educational materials on math. We first review the current approaches and resources for math retrieval, then report on the interviews of a small group of potential users to properly ascertain their needs. While preliminary, the results suggest that meta-search and resource categorization are two basic requirements for a math search engine. In addition, we implement a prototype categorization system and show that the generic features work well in identifying the math contents from the webpage but perform less well at categorizing them. We discuss our long term goals, where we plan to investigate how math expressions and text search may be best integrated.