Exploring the information behaviour of users of Welsh Newspapers Online through web log analysis

Purpose – Webometric techniques have been applied to many websites and online resources, especially since the launch of Google Analytics (GA). To date, though, there has been little consideration of information behaviour in relation to digitised newspaper collections. The purpose of this paper is to address a perceived gap in the literature by providing an account of user behaviour in the newly launched Welsh Newspapers Online (WNO). Design/methodology/approach – The author collected webometric data for WNO using GA and web server content logs. These were analysed to identify patterns of engagement and user behaviour, which were then considered in relation to existing information behaviour. Findings – Use of WNO, while reminiscent of archival information seeking, can be understood as centring on the web interface rather than the digitised material. In comparison to general web browsing, users are much more deeply engaged with the resource. This engagement incorporates reading online, but users’ information seeking utilises website search and browsing functionality rather than filtering in newspaper material. Information seeking in digitised newspapers resembles the model of the “user” more closely than that of the “reader”, a value-laden distinction which needs further unpacking. Research limitations/implications – While the behaviour discussed in this paper is likely to be more widely representative, a larger longitudinal data set would increase the study’s significance. Additionally, the methodology of this paper can only tell us what users are doing, and further research is needed to identify the drivers for this behaviour. Originality/value – This study provides important insights into the underinvestigated area of digitised newspaper collections, and shows the importance of webometric methods in analysing online user behaviour

Legal Deposit Web Archives and the Digital Humanities: a Universe of Lost Opportunity?

Legal deposit libraries have archived the web for over a decade. Several nations, supported by legal deposit regu-lations, have introduced comprehensive national domain web crawling, an essential part of the national library re-mit to collect, preserve and make accessible a nation’s intellectual and cultural heritage (Brazier, 2016). Scholars have traditionally been the chief beneficiaries of legal de-posit collections: in the case of web archives, the poten-tial for research extends to contemporary materials, and to Digital Humanities text and data mining approaches. To date, however, little work has evaluated whether legal deposit regulations support computational approaches to research using national web archive data (Brügger, 2012; Hockx-Yu, 2014; Black, 2016). This paper examines the impact of electronic legal deposit (ELD) in the United Kingdom, particularly how the 2013 regulations influence innovative scholarship using the Legal Deposit UK Web Archive. As the first major case study to analyse the implementation of ELD, it will ad-dress the following key research questions:• • Is legal deposit, a concept defined and refined for print materials, the most suitable vehicle for suppor-ting DH research using web archives? • How does the current framing of ELD affect digital in-novation in the UK library sector? • How does the current information ecology, including not for-profit archives, influence the relationship between DH researchers and legal deposit libraries

The GDD Network: Towards a Global Dataset of Digitised Texts

No abstract available

Spotting Clouds on the Horizon: User-Centric Evaluation after the Digital Archival Turn

No abstract available

A PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISLANDING EFFECTS IN A MODELED DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM WITH RENEWABLE RESOURCES

For this research, an investigation was undertaken regarding the inclusion of renewable resources into the distribution system. This incorporated the increasing prevalence of solar and wind resources, as well as the development of islanding capabilities within distribution systems

Spotting Clouds on the Horizon: User-Centric Evaluation after the Digital Archival Turn

No abstract available

The GDD Network: Towards a Global Dataset of Digitised Texts

No abstract available

Applying the TIMBUS Approach to Preserving Context in Digital Libraries

To date, digital preservation has generally focused on the preservation of specific data in the form of artefacts. However, in order to ensure that this data is accessible in the long term, it is vital that we consider how to extract and preserve information on the software and hardware contexts which this data depends upon to operate. We therefore need tools to assist in identifying, preserving and validating the processes which underpin the creation of data in digital libraries. In particular, we need to consider the importance of preserving not just individual digital artefacts, but the platforms which allow digital libraries to render or execute their items. Digital libraries rely on this software to render their items, and it is therefore important to know configuration details and software dependencies to ensure these items remain fully operational in the future. In the case of digital libraries, the TIMBUS framework provides the tools necessary to assist practitioners in identifying relevant processes, undertake risk analysis, and then to assist the user in extracting, preserving and revalidating the necessary processes. This half-day tutorial introduces the TIMBUS approach to process preservation, and demonstrates how it can be applied to issues relating to digital libraries. TIMBUS focuses primarily on business processes, but this tutorial will show its approach to process-oriented preservation is also relevant to digital libraries. It provides a methodology for process preservation and a set of tools which help to semi-automatically validate and preserve processes so that they can be recreated at a later dat. Participants will be given the knowledge to understand the importance of technical environments for collection items, and learn more about the TIMBUS solutions through examples relevant to the digital library domain. They will also gain an understanding of digital preservation as a risk mitigation strategy

Towards a Global Dataset of Digitised Texts: Final Report of the Global Digitised Dataset Network

No abstract available