Ramona Broussard

Mobile options for online public access catalogs

As mobile devices continue to proliferate and become more tightly integrated with our daily activities, a number of libraries have begun deploying customized mobile Web portals and applications to promote accessibility for patrons. Despite rapid growth of these mobile solutions, their novelty has meant relatively little is known about the alternatives and tradeoffs in designing for mobile access to libraries. To investigate these issues, we describe three complementary approaches. First, we report on a content analysis comparing mobile solutions offered by 22 institutions. Next, we present a user survey of university students, staff, and faculty regarding their uses and needs for mobile catalog access. Based on these findings, we describe a prototype mobile application we built to provide mobile access to our own universitys library catalog. Overall, we find that libraries have several tiered options that make it simple to provide basic functionality with relatively little effort and deliver a significantly improved user experience in comparison to relying on traditional browser-based solutions.

A synthesis of research on ICT adoption and use by medical professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa

Health care practitioners rely on access to relevant and up-to-date medical information in order to effectively treat their patients. One efficient, low-cost avenue for such information is online collections, but certain regions lack the information and communication technologies (ICT) necessary for widespread and reliable access to online resources. The characteristics of existing ICT infrastructure in many developing countries are not well understood. This research synthesis focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), an area with low levels of ICT infrastructure. It presents a synthesis of statistical analyses and a review across disciplines of information published on the state of ICT and health information access in SSA. An overview of the existing knowledge allowed us to identify the salient features of this particular ICT environment, and informed the development of a survey for SSA healthcare professionals. The synthesis and preliminary results from our survey suggest that Internet connectivity remains highly unreliable in Sub-Saharan Africa and that mobile devices provide the most reliable technology for health care providers to carry out their work.

Mobile phone search for library catalogs

While some libraries have begun to offer customized mobile applications for their online public access catalogs (OPACs), little research has investigated the relative costs and benefits associated with developing such applications. To investigate this tradeoff, we have developed a prototype Mobile search application for the University of Texas library catalog (MUT). Our experience indicates that mobile applications for catalog access can be built at relatively low cost and effort, with MUT providing a proof-of-concept for developing similar mobile applications at other institutions. Overall, our findings suggest customized mobile applications have potential to significantly better serve patrons in return for a relatively small investment in development and maintenance.

Interactive search result clustering: a study of user behavior and retrieval effectiveness

Scatter/Gather is a document browsing and information retrieval method based on document clustering. It is designed to facilitate user articulation of information needs through iterative clustering and interactive browsing. This paper reports on a study that investigated the effectiveness of Scatter/Gather browsing for information retrieval. We conducted a within-subject user study of 24 college students to investigate the utility of a Scatter/Gather system, to examine its strengths and weaknesses, and to receive feedback from users on the system. Results show that the clustering-based Scatter/Gather method was more difficult to use than the classic information retrieval systems in terms of user perception. However, clustering helped the subjects accomplish the tasks more efficiently. Scatter/Gather clustering was particularly useful in helping users finish tasks that they were less familiar with and allowed them to search with fewer words. Scatter/Gather tended to be more useful when it was more difficult for the user to do query specification for an information need. Topic familiarity and specificity had significant influences on user perceived retrieval effectiveness. The influences appeared to be greater with the Scatter/Gather system compared to a classic search system. Topic familiarity also had significant influences on query formulation.

Toward an understanding of fiction and information behavior: Toward an Understanding of Fiction and Information Behavior

The study of information science and technology has expanded over the years to include more kinds of people, more kinds of behavior, more methods, and a broader inclusion of fields. There is at least one area, however, where very few information studies scholars have tread: entertainment, particularly fiction. Yet many fields indicate that information studies should consider fiction. In this paper, we discuss how fiction is an informative genre and reasons why information studies scholars have mostly ignored fiction. We also identify potential research directions for studying fiction. We provide a summary of works about fiction and information, discuss motivations for expanding (and not expanding) information studies beyond what it is and has been, and we use an exploratory study of one example of a fiction‐interaction – reading Young Adult novels – to illustrate how fiction is important to information behavior.

Framing a Set: Understanding the Curatorial Character of Personal Digital Bibliographies

We articulate a model of curatorship that emphasizes framing the character of the curated set as the focus of curatorial activity. This curatorial character is structured through the articulation, via mechanisms of selection, description and arrangement, of coherent classificatory principles. We describe the latest stage of a continuing project to examine the curatorial character of personal digital bibliographies, such as Pinterest boards, Flickr galleries and GoodReads shelves, and to support the design of such curatorially expressive personal collections. In the study reported here, 24 participants created personal bibliographies using either a structured design process, with explicit tasks for selecting, describing and arranging collection items, or an unstructured process that did not separate these activities. Our findings lead to a more complex understanding of personal collections as curatorial, expressive artifacts. We explore the role of cohesion as a quality that facilitates expression of the curatorial frame, and we find that when designers read source materials as a part of a set, they are more likely to write cohesive collections. Our findings also suggest that the curatorial act involves both the definition of abstract classificatory principles and their instantiation in a specific material environment. We describe various framing devices that facilitate these reading and writing activities, and we suggest design directions for supporting curatorial reading and writing tasks.

New structures of video collections

With the growth of online TV, people increasingly expect services like recommending and sharing in digital video libraries. The amount and diversity of online video is increasing rapidly, changing how people engage with TV content. Thus, there is a need for models that account for the new online TV systems and the evolving expectations of users. This paper reports on the first iteration of a digital library model for online TV. The model was developed experimentally by analyzing collections, services and temporal behaviors of the most popular online TV sites.

A computer activity to encourage facial expression recognition for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) do not recognize emotions in context as quickly as children without ASD. This research explores the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the area of social skills education. The project presents a computer activity that encourages children with ASD to match facial expressions with an emotion based on a story snippet. The activity provides context to children with ASD, facilitates discussion between the child and a teacher or parent, supports various input modes (touch on a mobile device and mouse on a laptop), and uses an imaginative approach to an emotion recognition game. This computer activity represents a step toward an activity that can encourage individuals with ASD to see and better analyze emotion in facial expressions.