What is Information Visualisation

In this chapter, we introduce alternative ways to access digital audio collections. We give an overview of existing applications based on tow-dimensional, map-like representations of music collections. Further, we explain two applications for accessing audio files that are based on the Self-Organising Map, an unsupervised neural network model. These two applications—PlaySOM and PocketSOM—will be explained in greater detail, paying special attention to their unique properties and implementations for several mobile devices. These examples are supposed to gain the readers’ interest for alternative interfaces to large audio collections. Besides, we hope to show that alternative interfaces are feasible for both desktop computers and mobile devices and offer a practical approach to pressing issues in accessing digital collections.