Computer-supported Browsing for MIR

The word ‘browser’ has come to acquire an additional meaning to ‘one who browses’. ‘Browser’ is frequently used to describe a piece of software that enables a human, the browser, to engage interactively in visualising and exploring representation of objects in a computer. Users of record or bookshops and readers of newspapers engage in browsing. This activity differs radically from the traditional IR strategy of using a query to select subsets or extract properties from data sets. Browsing is an alternate IR strategy that can be effective for exploration, especially in the cases of unfamiliar domains, or in cases where a well-defined query is not desirable or possible. The provision of rich information spaces allows people to develop an understanding of the space, or the objects within that space, and of the relations between the objects. Two existing browsing prototypes are presented that illustrate how some browsing techniques may be applied to music. They are of particular interest in that they explore the potential for incorporating combined auditory and visual information spaces.