Amy Walduck is a librarian, an extrovert, a creative and has embraced a colourful career across state, academic, special, and public libraries. As a creative problem-solver, she thrives in busy, collaborative environments working with passionate people. At State Library of Queensland, Amy is currently working on digital, open data and collections as data initiatives such as the Digital Collections Catalyst and Making Meaning: Collections as Data Symposium.
Developed by State Library of Queensland, Curriculum Connect is a website for teachers and students incorporating teacher-reviewed educational resources. It offers quality classroom ready units of work, lesson plans and one-off activities. State Library utilised a user-centred design process to create Curriculum Connect. This paper discusses why it is important to put users at the centre of design. We explore how to identify your users and understand their needs. We discuss ways to involve users at each stage of the design process. We present how to align user needs with organisational requirements as well as how to adopt accessible and inclusive design practice. The paper concludes with strategies for continuous improvement once sites have been launched.
Biography
Ryan Schrader is a seasoned UX/UI designer with over 20 years of expertise in creating highly-effective, user-centered digital experiences. He is a curious thinker, who believes there is no problem that can’t be solved through empathy and good design. Ryan’s past work with the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Ego Pharmaceuticals and ANZ have helped clients understand their customer’s needs. Ryan believes in a solid UX process that involves users at every touchpoint. Designing for the true customer experience, supported by data, is where Ryan discovers key insights that deliver not only intuitive interfaces, but results.
Linda Barron is Director of Visitor and Information Services at State Library of Queensland where she manages a large team of staff delivering a range of online and onsite services to the Queensland public. This includes the coordinator of programs and activities to engage schools. She leads by example and gets a great deal of satisfaction from developing others. Linda loves libraries, learning, baking and eating what she bakes.
Software projects fail all the time. All. The. Time. We all work with software in some way. We are users, testers, system librarians, content managers, web masters, occasional coders, or possibly suddenly a project manager, running a software evaluation process, and making decisions. In smaller libraries you may be all of the above. This session digs into the many ways technology projects can and do go wrong, and what we can do (or influence other people to do) to make projects actually succeed.
Library system and publisher authentication requirements often act as barriers to research workflow. Researchers are increasingly going around these barriers by seeking content socially, from networked sites such as Twitter and ResearchGate to pirate sites like Sci-Hub. The ramifications of this move toward socially sourced content are considered, along with the emergence of new technologies that aim to streamline and simplify the research process, for users both within and outside the library.
Text mining is a rapidly growing field of scholarly research that has the potential to impact scholarly research of text based materials. It is a rapidly growing area of research within the scholarly community. JSTOR and Portico are developing a text mining platform and service that will have tools for the non-text miner, novices, intermediate text miners, and advanced text miners. The service will also have a robust education and community space.
Gale Digital Scholar Lab offers a straightforward entry point into Digital Humanities for new researchers and experienced scholars. The Lab provides access to large data sets that can be easily mined and exported for use in custom applications and open-source analytical tools. With the Lab, Gale has created a research platform to help bridge the gap that often exists between primary sources that are available in the library and the research needs and workflows of faculty and students. As an extension of a Library’s primary source collections, the Lab will encourage the use of archival holdings to support broader research needs.
In December 2015, ProQuest acquired Ex Libris. It was announced ProQuest would continue as the information-content arm, while Ex Libris would take over the management of the Workflow Solutions division. This paper will discuss how the integration has progressed by referencing recent projects between the two parts, provide details on internal realignments intended to increase efficiencies in product development designed to lead to an improved experience for both customers and end users. These projects and the ongoing roadmap are focused on continuing to improve the user experience of both ProQuest and Ex Libris products through streamlining workflows and enabling better data driven decision making.y.
Today’s library users have expectations based on major commercial services. To be successful in this environment, libraries need to connect to users personally while providing access to a universe of unique, valuable content. OCLC research shows that convenience is considered, in many cases, more important than getting the best search results. The need to meet user expectations is obvious, but the steps to get there may present some challenges. Although improvements will be iterative, speed is imperative. And it will require a willingness to let go of functions and processes that no longer serve the needs of our users.
As distributed working increases and the patterns of our lives change technology underpins our journey as we move across hosted systems. The library eco-system has multiple platforms that work together to provide users with valuable experiences. Digital identity has become a unifier across these platforms. Single sign-on is a stand out benefit from a common ID but the technology that ties together the experience can be complex and have unexpected consequences. At OpenAthens our goal is to remove friction around access while managing the competing priorities around privacy vs insight; piracy vs licence compliance; quality and curation vs availability.
The Frank and Eunice Corley House Photographs collection comprises over 60,000 unsold house photographs that were donated to State Library in 1995. Enhancing the usability and user experience of this collection was a project that spanned 23 years. State Library collaborated with the local community early to develop a grassroots approach to identifying basic location data. Later, it worked with artists, researchers and the general public to foster new understandings of the collection. This paper will highlight how digital tools and analogue processes were integral to facilitating these diverse interpretations.
