proposition: digital collections are easier to find and use through dlf aquifer’s american social...

Proposition: Digital Collections Are Easier to Find and Use

through DLF Aquifer’s American Social History Online

Katherine Kott, Aquifer DirectorLibrary Assessment Conference

Seattle, WAAugust 5, 2008

From planning to assessment: methods and tools

• Background• Planning• Design• Development• Assessment

Project background: American Social History Online

• To make distributed digital material easier to find and use

• Designed for – Teaching– Learning– Scholarship

• Web site and associated services

What’s the problem?

Use and Users of Digital Resources by Diane Harley Educause Quarterley, November 4, 2007

Too distributed

Overwhelming

Poor quality

The need for a more robust infrastructure for digital scholarship in the humanities and social sciences

What’s the solution?

Number one goal in the Digital Library Federation founding charter (1995)The implementation of a distributed, open digital library

conforming to the overall theme [of America’s heritage and culture] and accessible across the global Internet. This library shall consist of collections -- expanding over time in number and scope -- to be created from the conversion to digital form of documents contained in our and other libraries and archives, and from the incorporation of holdings already in electronic form.

Enter DLF Aquifer

• Emergent distributed open digital library initiative

• Named in 2003

• Organizational structure (director and working groups) established 2005– Created policies, schemas, best practices– Services Working Group responsible for

keeping the focus on the “content consumer”

Contributions to the community

• Experiments• Models• Methods• Best practices

Surveyed DLF membership to determine what information had been gathered

Leverage collaboration for service development

What services?

• Use cases derived from existing user studies– CDL American West project– DLF Scholars Panel– Other reports cited in Institutional Survey Report

• Personas and tasks methodology from CDL• Common business functions from Service Framework• Clarified target audiences

– Faculty– Graduate students– Undergraduates

American Social History Online

• Funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation– Small development team– Link to working groups—an Aquifer “instance”– Emphasis on

• Designing and building for scholar• Assessment• Planning for sustainability

Agile development

• Build prototype based on planning and design

• Involve graduate students, faculty and librarians– User stories– Using the software– Conference calls

• Incorporate ideas and re-release every 2-4 weeks

Products

• American Social History Online Web site

• Integration with Zotero

• Search engine optimization for improved discovery

• Integration with Sakai

• Federated search to include commercial content

Assessment

• Improving access for scholars• Stimulating new research questions• Supporting interdisciplinary study• Supporting cross regional research• Increasing digital collection use

Methods

• Interviews• Survey• Focus groups• Observation• Longitudinal study• Transaction log

analysis

Rapid prototyping & Formal assessment

• User services librarians unfamiliar with agile methods—confusing

• Rapid prototyping—heuristic--creating the framework

• Assessment—digging into the details

Results

• Preliminary results to be reported DLF Fall Forum, November 2008

• Final results to be reported DLF Spring Forum, April 2009

Questions & Comments?

kkott@diglib.org

www.dlfaquifer.org