Thoughts on 5990 and Digital Collections

So it it is getting close to the end of the semester and I wanted to reflect a bit on LIS 5990. Please keep in mind these are my own thoughts at this moment and will probably change over time (if not while I am writing this). Overall I found the course very interesting, fun, and useful. I was impressed by the amount of information and topics that were covered. The amount of resources that were found and shared was very amazing.

I found it was interesting the amount of work that goes into proposing, designing, and building a digital collection. Although I did not build my collection I still found it interesting to follow the discussions from those of my classmates who did.

The amount of work that is required to build an actual digital library is very significant. Everything from finding objects to include to determining funding must be considered. Then builders need to identify technical issues and problems associated with transforming these objects into a digital form. A builder must determine what hardware will be needed and find funding for this. Then they must decide on what software would be best and figure out how to use it effectively (in some cases just downloading the software is a real pain). Issues of copyright must be determined and addressed which may or may not be clear cut (and short of going to law school may be a challenge for anyone). To be successful standards must be considered and followed throughout the process. On top of all of this builders must determine who your target audience is and consider such things as usability, accessibility, and sustainability of the collection.

A successful collection will have dealt with all of these issues and considerations. Most of this work will go into the project behind the scenes and may not be clearly identifiable to the user.

Usability Considerations

One of the most important considerations a digital library/collection designer should consider is usability. I have been looking into usability over the past semester and I have decided that it is one of the core elements in a successful website (and therefore digital collection). One of the most widely known people researching this topic is Jakob Nielsen. Nielsen defines five components to successful usability: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction.

Learnability: deals with how quickly users can complete tasks the first time they encounter the page.

Efficiency: deals with how quickly tasks can be completed after learning the site.

Memoriability: deals with how easily users can reestablish profiency after not using the site for awhile.

Errors: deal with how many mistakes users make while using the collection.

Satisfaction: deals with how pleasant the design is to use.

These components must be kept in mind throughout the collection building process in order for a digital library to reach its full potential. Even after a digital library or collection has been developed usability testing should be used frequently to ensure that users are not being turned off the site. Because of the way people use the internet usability is much more important in the digital world than in the physical library. With the number of choices that are available to users libraries in the digital world are competing against libraries all over the world for users. If a site is not easily understood and user friendly the users will simply move on to the next Google search result.

Web Accessibility

One area that I feel is very important to digital collection design is web site accessibility. Accessibility deals with designing websites that are accessible and useful to people with disabilities so that they can utilize and contribute to the digital world. Since one of the stated goals of many digital collections is to expand the number of people who have access to a collection than accessibility must be a consideration when proposing, designing, or redesigning a digital collection.

I recently came across a website that I found very useful in understanding and designing to make websites more accessible. The website is the Web Accessibility Initiative and provides valuable information in how to make your website more accessible to people with disabilities. The site provides an easy to understand introduction to accessibility, guidelines and techniques, evaluation tools to use, and tips to manage accessibility on your site. Much of this information can be easily applicable to digital libraries and collections. One of the most useful and interesting pages deals with the components of web accessibility. Components such as considerations of content, users, assistive technology, and evaluation seem very relevant to any site.

I think that it is easy when building and designing a collection to forget that not all users of a collection are the same and some may require special considerations. Therefore web accessibility must be a consideration for any website or collection.