In this paper we present a system that allows users to access digital libraries using small screen devices. Instead of providing users with a single hard-coded solution, we allow them to customize how the content is structured, formatted and viewed on the small display. The centre of our system is a tool that can be used to customize Greenstone Digital Library collections for small displays. To lower the entry level, this tool has been designed to provide an abstraction from Greenstone’s low level architecture and other computing technologies, such as HTML and Java Script. We also place a strong emphasis on evaluation and incorporate users throughout the software development cycle. Lastly in the discussion, we speculate that by designing usable and customizable systems, there is the potential of breaking down the open source revenue model, which relies on providing services for systems that are hard to use and configure
