Design and Usability of Digital Libraries: Case Studies in the Asia Pacific

Citation

Bouchet, M. (2007), "Design and Usability of Digital Libraries: Case Studies in the Asia Pacific", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 437-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830710821023

The inspiration for this book came out of the 2002 Asian Digital Libraries Conference in Singapore, where the need to share experience within the Asia Pacific region was noted. The 20 papers in this book offer an insight into the concerns and research interests in digital libraries in this region; however, the issues raised are of worldwide relevance. The focus is mainly academic libraries, and the book will be of interest to academics and students in the library and information field and library practitioners interested in digital library issues. The case studies outline research and operational projects: this is not a practical guide covering the details in designing or setting up a digital library.

The papers are grouped into six sections:

1. 1.

   a survey and history of digital library development in the Asia Pacific (one paper);

2. 2.

   design architecture and systems (four papers);

3. 3.

   implementation issues and challenges (five papers);

4. 4.

   use and impact (four papers);

5. 5.

   users and usability (five papers); and

6. 6.

   future trends of digital libraries (one paper).

The papers cover areas that are familiar, although details of the particular concerns facing Asian libraries are of interest. For example, problems in dealing with a multiplicity of languages in different scripts (in particular for cataloguing, indexing, retrieval and metadata creation), cultural sensitivities to collating and presenting material and different attitudes and approaches to using a digital library environment.

The paper on the development of Indonesia's National Digital Library Network demonstrates how resources can be integrated to develop a service that is accessible nationwide. There are several papers describing technical projects which aim to improve the usability of library resources: metalogy, a framework that can handle different metadata formats; TH‐PASS, provides a personalised searching and recommending service; Centrifuser offers an automated approach to improving the relevance of information retrieved from a set of medical digital library resources. The section titled “Users and usability” brings together a number of projects which use different methods of evaluating systems to improve usability: formative, summative and iterative, with some using a combination.

As the editors, Foo and Theng, point out in their concluding paper, many countries in the Asia Pacific region have small technology infrastructures, with low percentages of Internet access per capita, which of course limits the up‐take of digital library services. As the situation evolves, it would be encouraging to think that organisations can learn from existing research and from case studies outlined in books such as this one, leapfrogging some of the trials and errors previously encountered. Indeed, countries in the Asia Pacific region, as a result of tackling these infrastructure problems, would be in a prime position to be able to push everyone's thinking in this area: for example, with wireless connectivity and improving information retrieval via more portable devices.

Reading this book reinforces the importance for everyone to embrace open source developments, enable interoperability at all levels and to standardise protocols to ensure that the usability of digital library resources continues to increase.