C. Olivia Frost

C. Olivia Frost is Associate Dean for Professional Programs and Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. Her research, teaching, and service areas focus on ways of providing intellectual access to information.

Education Frost has a B.A. in German Literature from Howard University, an M.L.S. from the University of Oregon, an M.A. in Germanic Languages and Literature; and a Ph. D. in Library Science from the University of Chicago. She studied for a year at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin as a Fulbright student.

Professional Experience Frost has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan since 1977 and has also taught at the University of Oregon and the University of Chicago. She also taught German at the University of Illinois at Chicago, worked as a medical cataloger at the University of Oregon, and as an evaluator of multicultural materials for the Eugene, Oregon school district.

Research and Publication Areas Research areas have focused on the organization of information, with an emphasis on nontextual materials. Frost is the author of two books on the organization of non-book materials. Earlier research focused on subject acess in library catalogs. More recent research has focused on retrieval of digital image information. Frost was PI of the Art Image Browser project, which developed, deployed and evaluated a digital database of images in art and architecture. As PI of the Digital Image Library Project at UM, Frost has assembled a team of researchers in computer vision, human-computer interaction, and information retrieval to design systems which provide general users with multimode retrieval combining content-based retrieval with text-based classification strategies. Frost is Principal Investigator of the Cultural Heritage Initiative for Community Outreach (CHICO), which works with museums, archives, libraries, and K-12 schools to develop pilot projects to demonstrate the potential of information and collaboration technology in broadening the reach of cultural heritage materials.

Recent Research Support Principal Investigator, Image Retrieval Research in the University of Michigan Digital Library, University of Michigan Office of Vice President for Research, 1996-98. Co-Investigator, The Arts of Citizenship: Programs on Public Culture in the University's Neighborhood, Michigan Humanities Council, 1997-1999. Principal Investigator, Cultural Heritage Online Practical Engagement Workshop, School of Information Practical Engagement Program, W.K. Kellogg. 1997-99. Principal Investigator, Building Museum/Classroom Partnerships for A Community-based Online Curriculum, Ameritech, 1998-1999.

Recent Publications Frost, Carolyn O. and Janes, Joseph W., "An Empirical Test of Gopher Searching Using Three Organization Schemes," in Navigating the Networks: Proceedings of the ASIS Mid-Year Meeting, Portland Oregon, May 21-25, 1994, pp. 84-94.

Birmingham, William P.; Drabenstott, Karen M.; Frost, Carolyn O.; Warner, Amy J.; Willis, Katherine. "The University of Michigan Digital Library: This is Not Your Father's Library." in: Schnase, John L., et al., eds. Proceedings of Digital Libraries '94: The First Annual Conference on the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries; 1994 June 19-21; College Station, Texas: Hypermedia Research Laboratory, 1994: 53-60.

"The University of Michigan School of Information Art Image Browser: Designing and Testing a Model for Image Retrieval", in Knowledge Organization and Change, Proceedings of the Fourth International ISKO Conference, 15-18 July 1996, Washington, DC, edited by Rebecca Green.

"Cultural Heritage Initiative for Community Outreach (CHICO)", Conference Proceedings, Community Networking Conference, Taos, N.M., May 14-17, 1996, p.73-78.

"Cultural Heritage Community Information Services at the University of Michigan School of Information", Conference Proceedings, Tenth Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 21-15, 1996, p. 25-34.

Frost C.O. and Noakes A., "Browsing images using broad classification categories". In Jacob, E K, ed. Proceedings of the 9th ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop, October 25, 1998, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Special Interest Group/Classification Research, American Society for Information Science, 1998, p. 71-89.

Frost, C. Olivia, "Cultural Heritage Outreach and Museum/School Partnerships: Initiatives at the School of Information, University of Michigan", Museums and the Web 1999: Selected Papers from an International Conference. Edited by David Bearman and Jennifer Trant, Archives & Museum Informatics, 1999, p. 223-229.

C. Olivia Frost, Bradley Taylor, Anna Noakes, Stephen Markel, Deborah Torres, Karen M. Drabenstott, "Browse and Search Patterns in a Digital Image Database", Information Retrieval. Forthcoming 1999.

Administrative Areas As Associate Dean, Frost's primary responsibility is to provide administrative oversight for curriculum delivery and student services in the Master of Science in Information program, and she assists as well in most other areas of the school that affect curriculum. She charis the Masters Committee (Administration and Financial Aid), and is membe rof the Doctoral Committee, Curriculum Committee, Dean's Advisory Council, Dean's Cabinet, Recruitment Committee.

Current Teaching Organization and Representation of Information Resources Organization of Multimedia Information Resources Cultural Heritage Outreach: Online Environments

C. Olivia Frost - School of Information, University of Michigan 550 East University - 304 West Hall - Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 (734)763-2285 - FAX: (734)764-2475 - cfrost@umich.edu