The International Children's Digital Library: viewing digital books online

TLDR: The initial efforts in building the ICDL are discussed, concentrating on the design of innovative digital book readers, which will help children have access to diverse collections of books.

About: This article is published in Interacting with Computers.The article was published on 2003-04-01 and is currently open access. It has received 67 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Digital media & Digital library.

Figures

Figure 4: Book club design.

Table 1: Ages of participating children

Figure 1: On the left, Microsoft Reader 2.0 with the riffle control open at the bottom of the window. On the right, Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader 2.2, showing its navigation bar at the bottom of the window.

Table 4: Number of adult observers that thought each of the readers was confusing, exciting or helpful

Figure 7: Reader ratings by children. A sad face was assigned a rating of 0, a neutral face a rating of 1, and a happy face, a rating of 2. Error bars are two standard deviations in length.

Figure 3: Children working at our lab.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "The international children’s digital library: viewing digital books online" ?

In this paper the authors discuss their initial efforts in building the ICDL, concentrating on an informal evaluation of innovative digital book readers. 

Q2. What future works have the authors mentioned in the paper "The international children’s digital library: viewing digital books online" ?

The authors plan to further examine the possibilities of other book readers. The authors also plan to make the interface components they developed for SearchKids highly configurable so they can be easily used with any digital library, including the ICDL. The authors also plan to start building a large collection of books so they can learn how to deal with issues of scale. In particular, the authors would like to investigate a book reader showing small thumbnails of all pages as a way to navigate the book while at the same time showing the current page large enough so it can be read. 

Q3. How many books can be made available through online digital collections?

with computer technologies becoming more widely available in school/public libraries and community centers, tens of thousands of books can be made available through online digital collections. 

Q4. What is the role of books in children’s lives?

Books can help children to understand who they are, explore the world around them, and contribute to a child’s ability to be literate in today’s society [11] [21] [26] [31] [33]. 

Q5. How is the navigation between pages accomplished?

With these text readers, navigation between pages is primarily accomplished by using keyboard shortcuts or small next and previous page buttons, which are too small for young children. 

Q6. What did the group feel was needed?

The group dealing with how to read books on the computer screen felt that in addition to traditional book reader features, children needed extra support for navigation. 

Q7. How many children’s books are available online?

This collection, as of January 2002, includes 67 fully digitized books online, with plans to increase the number to 1,200 out of copyright titles. 

Q8. What is the plan to make the interface components for SearchKids highly configurable?

The authors also plan to make the interface components the authors developed for SearchKids highly configurable so they can be easily used with any digital library, including the ICDL. 

Q9. What are the main advantages of using the two products?

Both products also contain features for searching and annotating books, looking for words in the dictionary, and reading words out loud. 

Q10. What did the researchers do after the children were done with the books?

Once a child was paired with an adult, an adult researcher led them to a computer, gave them the questionnaires, and explained to them what they were going to do. 

Q11. How many children did the research team have?

The authors invited their research team to bring their parents, siblings, and friends and ended up having 16 children, aged 5 to 11 (see Table 1 for ages), from diverse backgrounds, including four children of color.