Introduction : user studies for digital library development

Introductory chapter to the edited collection on user studies in digital library development. Contains a general introduction to the topic and biographical sketches of the contributors.peer-reviewe

User Studies for Digital Library Development

As the information environment becomes increasingly electronic, digital libraries have proliferated, but the focus has often been on innovations in technology and not the user. Research and analysis of users is essential to fine-tune the content and approach of digital libraries to the diverging requirements and expectations of incredibly varied communities and to ensure libraries are effective, accessible and sustainable in the long term. This book provides a clear overview of the user studies domain and user issues in digital libraries

Supporting the Cross-cultural Appreciation of Traditional Chinese Puppetry Through a Digital Gesture Library

In recent years, digital cultural heritage has attracted much attention in the HCI domain, but there are currently few studies that focus on enhancing the appreciation of intangible cultural heritage content amongst cross-cultural audiences. This article reports on the development of a Digital Gesture Library to support cross-cultural appreciation of traditional Chinese puppetry. We describe fieldwork with professional puppeteers to understand their practices and art form, which informed the development of the Digital Gesture Library, which uses a three-perspective archive of puppetry gestures and a tangible interface to support cross-cultural audiences’ appreciation of puppetry and encourages further exploration of Chinese culture. We present findings on the efficacy of the Digital Gesture Library from qualitative and quantitative user studies and, from this, discuss the opportunities and challenges for developing digital technology for cross-cultural appreciation of intangible heritage

Bringing Down the Empire: Remaking Our Work, Our Libraries, Our Selves

As Director of Library Digital Strategies and Innovations, Suzanne leads the development and implementation of digital strategies for the Harvard Library community. Her work includes examining trends in information technology and digital library development and identifying opportunities for innovation within the Library and with external partners. During her fifteen years as a Harvard librarian, Wones has advocated for user-focused innovations and developing creative solutions to advance the mission of the University. As Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Library, she led operations and programmatic efforts, as well as strategic planning and budget management. Suzanne also stewarded faculty/library relationships, and managed all daily activities of the HLS Library, including collection development, case studies, digitization, and academic technology. Working in libraries since 1993, Suzanne has held roles in Inter-Library Loan, Microforms, Circulation, Reference, and Administration. As a manager, she is an activist for redefining positions to meet the needs of library users and to matching employees to positions where they can thrive. Suzanne holds a MS in Information, Library and Information Services from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as well as a MA in American History from the University of New Hampshire and a BA in History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Making Software into a Program: Columbia University Libraries' Hyacinth User Group

This presentation, delivered at the 2019 meeting of the Digital Library Forum, highlights the work of the Hyacinth User Group at Columbia University Libraries. The group has members from many divisions of the library including Application Development, Cataloging, Digital Collections, Institutional Repository and Digital Conversion. These staff members have come together to administer Hyacinth, Columbia’s metadata and content management application. This presentation focuses on two case studies that show the value such an administrative group can bring to the shared use of software - implementing relatedness statements and managing controlled vocabularies. In the case of relatedness statements, the group navigated the varied expressions of relatedness required by different library divisions avoiding collisions and blocks to future development. Shared management of controlled vocabularies has required the group to produce robust documentation and develop clear user permissions to prevent alteration of terms as well as a remediation process for safely removing erroneous terms from the system and records. In the pursuit of these projects, we have seen the vital need for software developers and metadata practitioners to work together. Each has a unique perspective of the problems at hand. The developers have created a powerful tool to organize and publish metadata to numerous websites and digital collections. The Hyacinth User Group has developed the policies and communication flows to ensure the application’s diverse group of users can wield that tool effectively and efficiently

"Reject Perfection": The Impact of User Studies on Born-Digital Collections Access in Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAMs)

Within the last five years, innovative technologies, standards, and resources have advanced borndigital access scholarship and practices in libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs). An emerging archival theory of practice, Participatory Archival Research and Development (PAR&D) frames an optimal practitioner participatory research environment needed to continue these advancements, especially for conducting essential born-digital access user studies in collecting institutions. The Digital Library Federation (DLF) Born-Digital Access Working Group (BDAWG) provides an inclusive, academic space to which ‘Reject Perfection’ is the first core value. Library and archive professionals have embraced this philosophical paradigm, incorporating user experience assessments into born-digital access workflows to understand and improve user experiences. Have these studies improved access practices and user experiences? Are there barriers to access that the studies identify? This paper investigates four user studies conducted between 2015-2020 to benchmark the current born-digital collections access landscape through both practitioner and researcher user experiences. Ten LAM professionals, who participated in open-ended interviews, assist in recommending improvements to access and provide strategies for creating a cultural mindset that values user studies. Through shared communities of practice and cross-disciplinary collaborations, especially with museums, the commitment to LAM convergence will actively steward the scholarship needed to develop and sustain ‘best’ or ‘good enough’ born-digital access practices and implementation of user studies

Progressive Trends in Electronic Resources Management Among Academic Libraries in Hong Kong

Due to recent technology advancement and particularly ubiquity of smart devices, user needs and habits of using library materials are also changed towards electronic resources, which facilitate anytime anyplace access as well as easier information search. For library management, digital resources facilitate long-term preservation together with savings of space and human costs. This lead to a trend of rapid development of digitization and electronic resources, leading to lots of changes in academic libraries. However, there are few studies providing a holistic view of this important trend, especially in metropolis of the East. To explore this trend, we interviewed four librarians in different departments from different universities in Hong Kong for a qualitative analysis on various aspects such as digital versus print, user expectation changes, and new management problems. Emerging issues of e-resources highlighted by the libraries includes acquisitions policies, budget implication, copyright, and access restrictions, consortium collaboration, manpower issues, workflow, and library system changes. We further discuss the practical implications of our findings, which are supportive to those disparate in other literature.postprin

Keynote

Kevin Stranack is the Head of Digital Publishing at the Simon Fraser University Library and the Associate Director for Community Engagement & Learning at the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where he leads the PKP School for open access publishers and is responsible for the Project\u27s continuing education, community development, user experience, and communications. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member at the iSchool at UBC and the Publishing program at SFU. Kevin holds a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Adult Education from the University of Regina

Service Quality Expectations of Academic Library Users

The library services have changed very fast in the digital era. The library customers have access to multiple sources of information and expect quality material within the shortest possible time irrespective of the format of information. Hence, library must provide quality service in order to retain and increase its importance for its users and succeed in enhancing the role of the library in teaching, learning and research. Quality services means those which satisfy users’ expectations and perceptions. Proper understanding of customers' perceptions along service quality dimensions is essential for LIS professionals to recognize the customer expectations. This paper briefly explains the concept of service quality; trace its development and highlight some results of service quality studies using various models, with an objective to describe and identify the issues meriting attention by the library professionals to gear up the library products and services so that user communities get satisfied coming to library

Service Quality Expectations of Academic Library Users

The library services have changed very fast in the digital era. The library customers have access to multiple sources of information and expect quality material within the shortest possible time irrespective of the format of information. Hence, library must provide quality service in order to retain and increase its importance for its users and succeed in enhancing the role of the library in teaching, learning and research. Quality services means those which satisfy users’ expectations and perceptions. Proper understanding of customers' perceptions along service quality dimensions is essential for LIS professionals to recognize the customer expectations. This paper briefly explains the concept of service quality; trace its development and highlight some results of service quality studies using various models, with an objective to describe and identify the issues meriting attention by the library professionals to gear up the library products and services so that user communities get satisfied coming to library