Chern Li Liew

Digital library research 1997‐2007: Organisational and people issues

Purpose – This review aims to provide a snapshot of digital library research of the past 11 years (1997‐2007) that focuses on organisational and people issues, including those concerning the social/cultural, legal, ethical, and use dimensions.Design/methodology/approach – The review covers articles published in mainstream peer‐reviewed library and information science/studies journals. The analysis was done by drawing on a sample of 577 articles published in both academic and professional LIS journals.Findings – The analysis reveals that there are several topics that are dominant in the sample. There are significant research streams into one or more aspects of digital library use and usability, organisational and economical issues, as well as legal issues. In comparison, there is very little research in the sample that addresses ethical issues and social/cultural issues. D‐Lib Magazine tops the list as the journal with the highest number of articles published and in spite of some fluctuations, there was an...

Metadata quality and interoperability of GLAM digital images

Purpose – This study aims to explore how metadata have been applied in GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) institutions in New Zealand (NZ) and to analyse its overall quality with the interoperability of the metadata element set especially in mind.Design/methodology/approach – The first stage of data collection involved an analysis of the metadata records from 16 institutions from the NZ GLAM sector to examine the types and extent of metadata used. However, by looking at publicly accessible metadata records, it was impossible to determine the full extent of metadata created, especially when there could be metadata that were kept in‐house. This was complemented with interviewing of staff from the institutions concerned.Findings – The study found that metadata records for digital images in four types of institutions have different emphases on metadata functions and a variety of metadata are not applied on a consistent basis. The lack of technical data in metadata records means that digital vis...

The evaluation of New Zealand academic library OPACs: a checklist approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability features of online public access catalogues (OPACs) in New Zealand academic libraries. It also makes a comparison of how libraries using the same library software are customizing their interfaces to make them useful to their users.Design/methodology/approach – The interface/usability features of 13 academic library OPACs in New Zealand are analyzed using a usability inspection evaluation method. More specifically, the paper uses a modified checklist based on the checklists of Cherry et al. and Ibrahim.Findings – Most OPACs in the paper sample receive high scores in the areas of bibliographic display, text, layout, labels, and user assistance. Many new features that are associated with search engines such as word cloud, faceted navigation, the most popular ranking and related items are however, not found in the surveyed OPACs. OPACs built on the Voyager library systems on average, score higher in most feature categories in the checklist. F...

A textured sculpture: The information needs of users of digitised New Zealand cultural heritage resources

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to gather some empirical, baseline information on the perceived needs of end‐users of digital cultural heritage resources. The study was funded by the National Library of New Zealand in order to take end‐user needs into consideration more fully in its development and presentation of digital cultural heritage resources.Design/methodology/approach – The studys research design involved a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach; a user survey comprising self‐administered, semi‐structured questionnaires, seven face‐to‐face semi‐structured interviews and one focus group.Findings – The findings outline the barriers users face in using New Zealand digital cultural heritage resources. They also highlight the user needs and features and characteristics they most desire in digital cultural heritage resources.Originality/value – Only a handful of studies exist about end‐user needs with respect to the digitisation of cultural heritage materials and very few are research‐base...

Stakeholder involvement in the development and maintenance of web sites for children

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate how public and state libraries are responding to research recommendations that the usability of a web site for children is improved by involving a wide range of stakeholders and particularly the end‐users, in its creation.Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a self‐administered, structured e‐mail questionnaire.Findings – The development of childrens web pages is usually the responsibility of teams of internal stakeholders, with the librarians responsible overall for the library web site being involved most, followed by childrens librarians. Other library staff, information technology staff from the parent organisation and external experts made smaller contributions. The target group of children were less involved and took informal, indirect roles, rather than the direct, formal roles recommended by research.Research limitations/implications – The sample size is small and includes only childrens web pages in Australia and New Zealand.Ori...

Participatory Cultural Heritage: A Tale of Two Institutions' Use of Social Media

The purpose of this study is to examine how and to what extent cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) are currently using social media to create a culture of participation around their digital collections and services. An environmental scan of New Zealand CHIs with a social media initiative was conducted and four cases with considerable activities, participatory communication and user-generated contents were investigated. Two of these case studies are reported in this paper. The two sites were chosen, firstly, on the basis of their having levels of participatory activity significant enough to merit in-depth analyses; and, second, on their ability to provide contrasting examples of different approaches and practices. The purpose of the comparison is to highlight the different nature and extent of participatory culture and user generated/contributed contents. While one of the sites belongs to a major national institution, the other represents a regional, community-level initiative. Further, while one site employs a self-hosted Web 2.0 platform, the other utilises a third-party platform. Finally, while one is aimed primarily at displaying and promoting images from an archival collection while enabling user commenting, the other actively seeks contributions to share and co-construct local history stories.

Insight from social media use by memory institutions in New Zealand: Participatory vs curatorial culture

Purpose The relatively under-documented “dark side” of participatory activities facilitated by memory institutions through social media is examined in this study. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the risks and perception of risks resulting from using social media for public engagement and participation. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen representatives from the New Zealand information and cultural heritage sector who at the time of the study were holding the main responsibilities of overseeing the social media and participatory activities of the institutions they represented. Findings It is not evident that the growth of social web has significantly changed the way the heritage sector seeks participation. Only a small minority of the sample institutions appear to be using social web tools to build community and to enhance their heritage collections. For the majority, institutional use of social media is for creating a “chattering space”. The main concerns identified by interviewees were reputation management and the risk management process followed by most institutions appeared to be reactive, responding to problems as and when they occurred, rather than proactive about risk identification and avoidance. Research limitations/implications Findings are not generalisable as the sample size of thirteen institutions is relatively small and is limited to one national context. Originality/value Findings provide insight into largely unexplored issues relating to the development of participatory cultures by memory institutions. The paper highlights a key area where further research is needed, namely to explore whether participatory heritage should primarily be about curated viewpoints or whether it should encompass capturing living dialogues, even when conversations are potentially offensive.

The influence of contextual factors on the adoption and development of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) programmes in the Arab Gulf States

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from research that explored the influence of contextual factors on the adoption and development of Electronic Theses and Dissertation (ETD) programmes in the Arab Gulf States. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of five groups of stakeholders with an interest in the implementation of ETD programmes. The groups were postgraduate students, academic staff, library managers, system administrators, and postgraduate officers from five Gulf States universities. In addition, an online survey was conducted with 309 participants in order to test and explore, in a larger sample, the issues identified in the interviews. Findings – Research participants identified three levels of factors; contextual, institutional, and personal. In addition, they highlighted that contextual factors have an influence on institutional factors. These contextual factors include misunderstanding of plagiarism, strong econ...

Help with health information on the web

Purpose – In recent years, there has been a proliferation of online resources that offer health information. However, there is no guarantee that all intended users will be able to use these resources effectively. This study seeks to investigate the types of help features that are available through existing internet‐based health information resources that support the use of these resources.Design/methodology/approach – An investigation of 30 such resources was carried out with the objective of answering these questions. The paper intends to answer the following research questions: What types of help features are available in existing online health information resources? How can their formats and presentation styles be characterised based on existing interface design guidelines from the Human‐Computer Interaction (HCI) community? Were there any differences in the manner in which different internet‐based health information providers presented evidence‐based information?Findings – The study discovered a range...

GLAM metadata interoperability

Both digitised and born-digital images are a valuable part of cultural heritage collections in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM). Efforts have been put into aggregating these distributed resources. High quality and consistent metadata practice across these institutions are necessary to ensure interoperability and the optimum retrieval of digital images. This paper reports on a study that involves interviews with staff members from ten institutions from the GLAM sector in New Zealand, who are responsible for creating metadata for digital images. The objective is to understand how GLAM institutions have gone about creating metadata for their image collections to facilitate access and interoperability (if any) and the rationale for their practice, as well as the factors affecting the current practice.