Jon Rimmer

Representing aggregate works in the digital library

This paper studies the challenge of representing aggregate works such as encyclopedias, collected poems and journals in heterogenous digital library collections. Reflecting on the materials used by humanities academics, we demonstrate the varied range of aggregate types and the problems of faithfully representing this in the DL interface. Aggregates are complex and pervasive, challenge common assumptions and confuse boundaries within organisational structures. Existing DL systems can only provide imperfect representation of aggregates, and alterations to document encoding are insufficient to create a faithful reproduction of the physical library. The challenge is amplified through concrete examples, and solutions are demonstrated in a well-known DL system and related to standard DL architecture.

The Fans United will Always be Connected: Building a Practical DTN in a Football Stadium

Football stadia present a difficult environment for the deployment of digital services, due to their architectural design and the capacity problems from the numbers of fans. A delay tolerant network (DTN) is a viable solution to this problem. We present preliminary results from deploying an Android app building an ad hoc network amongst the attendees at matches at Brighton and Hove Albion’s AMEX stadium, so as to share the available capacity and supply digital services to season ticket holders. We describe the protocol, how we engaged our users in service design so that the app was attractive to use and the problems we encountered in using Android. Initial results show that there is interest in the services provided and that the DTN is successful in providing connectivity.

Documentation and the users of digital resources in the humanities.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of documentation for digital humanities resources. This includes technical documentation of textual markup or database construction, and procedural documentation about resource construction.Design/methodology/approach - A case study is presented of an attempt to reuse electronic text to create a digital library for humanities users, as part of the UCIS project. The results of qualitative research by the LAIRAH study on provision of procedural documentation are discussed, as also is, user perception of the purpose, construction and usability, of resources collected using semi-structured interviews and user workshops.Findings - In the absence of technical documentation, it was impossible to reuse text files with inconsistent markup (COCOA and XML) in a Digital Library. Also, although users require procedural documentation, about the status and completeness of sources, and selection methods, this is often difficult to locate.Practical implications - Creators of digital humanities resources should provide both technical and procedural documentation and make it easy to find, ideally from the project web site. To ensure that documentation is provided, research councils could make documentation a project deliverable. This will be even more vital once the AHDS is no longer funded to help ensure good practice in digital resource creation.Originality/value - Previous work has argued that documentation is important. However, the paper presents actual evidence of the problems caused by a lack of documentation and shows that this makes reuse of digital resources almost impossible. This is intended to persuade project creators who wish resources to be reused to provide documentation about its contents and technical specifications.

User centred interactive search in the humanities

This article describes research on the needs and behaviours of humanities users of both digital libraries and more traditional information environments

How Web browsers shape users’ understanding of networks

What happens when users encounter breakdown situations when browsing the Web? Reports a study in which 35 participants were asked to think aloud whilst following a trail through a series of Web pages. Some of the pages were designed to cause error messages to be displayed by the browser when users tried to interact with them. The results from the study showed that the error messages did not help users to diagnose the cause of the problems, or develop their understanding of the Internet. Error messages do provide a vocabulary for describing problems, but fail to provide a model to pin the terminology on. We suggest that an underlying model of Web browsing should be available for users to learn from the error messages, rather than just seeing them as a sign of “something being wrong”.

ShineUS: Exploring preferences in public discussion

We propose to demonstrate a system for discussing posters. The system bridges the physical and virtual, using QR codes to tag posters and being available through mobile devices, the web and a projection or large screen view. Control over visibility of interactions is provided, allowing users to control their exposure and consider privacy concerns while making comments on a per-post basis. The use of identity, integration with Facebook and Twitter, ability to reply and ongoing availability of the system after the conference all allow it to take on a social aspect. The deployment will contribute to our research by providing further data on how such systems, in particular their visibility controls, are used.