User Studies for Digital Library Development

Citation

Wellstead, P. (2013), "User Studies for Digital Library Development", Library Review, Vol. 62 No. 6/7, pp. 442-443. https://doi.org/10.1108/LR-03-2013-0044

The editors of this book combine their own international contexts to bring together over 20 authors from throughout the world to present a wide‐ranging expose of the many ways to conduct user studies in order to integrate users needs into the development phase of digital libraries. This is a user‐centred volume. The chapters are self contained but are grouped into five major sections: the first sets up the general scene for digital library development, the second looks at user study methods and their use, the third explores digital library issues in specific settings and the fourth highlights applications of user studies across the information sectors. The final section, written by the editors, summerises how user studies can be used in the digital library projects lifecycle.

User studies are ubiquitous in the LIS sector. We often seem obsessed with who is in our libraries and what they are doing there. One has to wonder at times what happens to the data from all these studies of our client group, and has it made any difference to the services we provide. In digital libraries, things are a little different. Who the user is, where are they, why are they “visiting” and what are they doing there is somewhat more difficult to determine. And there is, of course, the thorny issue of whether they meant to visit at all – or whether they got there by accident during an online search for something else. Some of these points are eloquently discussed by the editors in their introduction.

Studying human information behaviour in the digital area is a challenge for a range of reasons, not least because LIS professionals have had to cede much of the development of systems to people who may know a lot about systems development but not a lot about the client groups with whom we are trying to engage, and what their needs might be. There is, as the editors point out, a sense of “if we build it they will come”. The lure of gadgets and the obsolescence of fads are just two of the traps for digital library developers, and a constant source of frustration for those with the needs of users as core business. These tensions are obvious through much of the writing in the book.

Some of the chapters in this book are technical (deep log analysis and eye tracking are two examples); these sections may be somewhat of a challenge to those from a more traditional LIS background, but they are extremely interesting and others should persevere. Developing a deeper understanding of human information behaviour in the digital era will assist us to learn more about our client group and what they are doing in our virtual spaces. This can only help our cause: to stay relevant and available.

The breadth of LIS is well covered in this book. There are chapters about digital libraries for museums, galleries and archives as well as children's libraries, multimedia collections, and the brave new world of libraries' and clients' use of mobile devices to access our collections. The strength of this book is that it puts the user at the core of development. The writers are keen for the reader to understand that our core business remains the delivery of content to our clients, and that the technology is only a platform for this delivery (in the same way as the card catalogue and the reference desk were in the past). This book will assist LIS professionals to develop a confident vocabulary, with high quality research to underpin it, to insist on this user centered approach as a basic premise of digital library development.