Katherine Kott, Aquifer Director Library Assessment Conference Seattle, WA August 5, 2008
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Proposition: Digital Collections Are Easier to Find and Use through DLF Aquifer’s American Social History Online Katherine Kott, Aquifer Director Library Assessment Conference Seattle, WA August 5, 2008
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Proposition: Digital Collections Are Easier to Find and Use through DLF Aquifer’s American Social History Online. Katherine Kott, Aquifer Director Library Assessment Conference Seattle, WA August 5, 2008. From planning to assessment: methods and tools. Background Planning Design - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of Katherine Kott, Aquifer Director Library Assessment Conference Seattle, WA August 5, 2008
Proposition: Digital Collections Are Easier to Find and Use
through DLF Aquifer’s American Social History OnlineKatherine 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
