Showing papers presented at "ACM international conference on Digital libraries in 2006"

Collaborative co-design: The Cal Poly Digital Teaching Library user centric approach

Abstract: Undergraduate students currently enrolled in US universities represent the first generations to grow up with the digital technologies developed and disseminated in the last decades of the 20th century. Having spent their entire lives using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, email, instant messaging, and all the other tools and toys of contemporary technology, they think differently (Prensky, December 2001). As a consequence, today’s students are not the people that the US educational system was designed to teach (Prensky, October 2001). It is also the case that traditional design approaches are insufficient for developing enabling information management and knowledge creation tools in contemporary digital teaching library environments. Therefore, drawing from human-information interaction (HII) principles and practices (Morville, 2005), librarians at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, California created a collaborative design approach involving users in the production of digital library teaching and learning resources and technology-enabled infrastructure. In this paper, we report on a unique approach to user studies and system evaluation as exemplified by student framed, student conducted, and student interpreted research findings which inform disciplinary digital research portal design and development efforts. In addition, we describe research-in-progress which involves students in investigating and reporting results that, in this case, inform the construction and population of a physical and virtual learning commons within the Digital Teaching Library initiative. Throughout, a wide array of research methodologies, including focus groups, usability studies, rapid prototyping, and survey instruments, have been employed in the spirit of “appreciative design” (Norum, 2001). In addition, an action research orientation ensures real world benefits, even as it promotes the organizational learning and relationship building necessary to allow the organization to respond to challenges and opportunities in an increasingly dynamic digital library environment.

Investigating the feasibility of a distributed, mapping-based, approach to solving subject interoperability problems in a multi-scheme, cross-service, retrieval environment

Abstract: The HILT project is researching the problems of facilitating interoperability of subject descriptions in a distributed multi-scheme environment. HILT Phase I found a UK community consensus in favour of utilising an inter-scheme mapping service to improve interoperability. HILT Phase II investigated the approach by building a pilot server, and identified a range of issues that would have to be tackled if an operational service was to be successful. HILT Phase III will implement a centralised version of an M2M pilot, but will aim to design it so that the possibility of a move to a distributed service remains open. This aim will impact on likely future research concerns in Phase III and beyond. Wide adoption of a distributed approach to the problem could lead to the creation of a framework within which regional, national, and international efforts in the area can be harmonised and co-ordinated.

Important aspects of modern digital libraries

Abstract: Digital Libraries have been the subject of more than a decade of attention by researchers and developers, and yet in all this time implementations have not matched the promises. Even today, when there is new wave of enthusiasm for digital libraries based on a number of open access initiatives, the majority of systems is concentrating on content and provides limited or just basic functions for users. In this paper we first discuss some aspects from a digital library initiatives. We then present what we believe can be expected from a digital library system based on current developments in information technology. We explain the basic functions, which are required to support finding and accessing material by a reader. Next we explain some extended functions, which support the use and re-use of documents-links and annotations-and the need to support learners in addition to readers and writers. Finally, we present our vision for and our concerns about large digital libraries and e-learning portal systems. Our vision include for example intelligent and conceptual search including results visualization, white lists and adaptive user interfaces. Our concerns are based on a dramatic increase in plagiarism due to the massive amounts of information that is ready for everyone to copy and paste, a fact that may impact on how we conduct and deal with publications in the future.