Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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groups, log analysis (the same ones used by the LAIRAH project for their research), Delphi 581
forecast<strong>in</strong>g, and user trials. 582 In the f<strong>in</strong>al step of their process, RePAH used the results of the user
trials where participants were presented with a range of possible portal features and a number of
demonstrators to “cross-check” the earlier results of the focus groups, questionnaires, and Delphi
exercise.
A number of major f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs emerged as a result of this research that illustrate larger themes that need
to be considered when design<strong>in</strong>g an <strong>in</strong>frastructure for any discipl<strong>in</strong>e with<strong>in</strong> the arts and humanities
such as classics. They labeled one major theme as “pull vs. push.” While 60 percent of the respondents
to the onl<strong>in</strong>e questionnaire considered digital resources to be essential to their work, they also saw the
Web as a source of data to be used rather than “as a repository <strong>in</strong>to which they could push their own
data.” While the collection and analysis of <strong>in</strong>formation was important to almost half of respondents,
data storage and archiv<strong>in</strong>g were not given a high priority.
A second major f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g that emerged from the focus group discussions was that arts and humanities
scholars considered the web to have three major benefits: speed and efficiency, timel<strong>in</strong>ess of resources,
and new ways of work<strong>in</strong>g. When asked about the shortcom<strong>in</strong>gs of the web, respondents gave more
diverse responses. While most focus group participants reported be<strong>in</strong>g satisfied with the digital
resources they had available, they also overwhelm<strong>in</strong>gly wanted greater onl<strong>in</strong>e access to the subject
literature of their field, particularly journals. Participants were also concerned about the large number
of low-quality search results they often obta<strong>in</strong>ed on the web, and many wanted “tools for aggregat<strong>in</strong>g
data for search<strong>in</strong>g and analysis and better quality control and rank<strong>in</strong>g of results”(Brown and
Greengrass 2010). Despite want<strong>in</strong>g better quality control, participants were suspicious about who
would undertake the quality assurance and wanted to have an unmediated role <strong>in</strong> the process. Other
major frustrations with the web <strong>in</strong>cluded the lack of <strong>in</strong>teroperability between digital libraries,
<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g access restrictions, and <strong>in</strong>tellectual property rights.
The RePAH questionnaire had also focused on the types of resources that scholars used. Brown and
Greengrass reported that a wide range of resources was used and there was little commonality between
discipl<strong>in</strong>es. Generic sites such as library websites were the most commonly cited, with Google
(<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g Google Scholar, images, etc.) and JSTOR as the next two most frequently cited resources.
Interest<strong>in</strong>gly, Brown and Greengrass also commented that <strong>in</strong> certa<strong>in</strong> discipl<strong>in</strong>es, such as classics and
ancient history, Google was listed as the “central tool for acquir<strong>in</strong>g digital <strong>in</strong>formation,” perhaps
because of the relatively large number of digital resources <strong>in</strong> classics. In general, however, the largest
category of resource cited was “other.”
While user trials elicited some diverse responses to different potential portal features, Brown and
Greengrass nevertheless stressed how “the overarch<strong>in</strong>g message that came out of the user trials was
they wanted simple tools that required little or no <strong>in</strong>put of time or personal engagement.” Participants
highly valued “resource discovery” 583 and filter<strong>in</strong>g tools that provided greater control over web-based
resources but also wanted tools that were highly customizable. The most important onl<strong>in</strong>e resources
were journal articles and other bibliographical resources. Workflow-management tools such as
sophisticated bookmark<strong>in</strong>g features and automated copyright management were also highly desired
581 Brown and Greengrass expla<strong>in</strong> that Delphi is “a structured process for collect<strong>in</strong>g and distill<strong>in</strong>g knowledge from a group of experts by means
of a series of questionnaires <strong>in</strong>terspersed with controlled op<strong>in</strong>ion feedback” and it was used to filter ideas from the focus group by ask<strong>in</strong>g experts to rank
ideas <strong>in</strong> terms of their importance to their future research.
582 Accord<strong>in</strong>g to Brown and Greengrass, “user trials are a technique for ga<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g user responses to design ideas, work<strong>in</strong>g from mock-ups or simulations.”
583 This f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g is somewhat ironic as the major resource discovery service <strong>in</strong> the United K<strong>in</strong>gdom, Intute, has recently announced that its JISC fund<strong>in</strong>g
will end <strong>in</strong> July 2011 (http://www.<strong>in</strong>tute.ac.uk/blog/2010/04/12/<strong>in</strong>tute-plans-for-the-future-2010-and-beyond/).