Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A User-Centric Evaluation of the Europeana Digital Library

  • Conference paper
The Role of Digital Libraries in a Time of Global Change (ICADL 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6102))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Usability of digital libraries is an essential factor for the user attraction. Europeana, a digital library which is built around the idea to provide a single access point to the European cultural heritage, is paying special attention to the user needs and behaviour. This paper presents user-related outcomes addressing the dynamics of user perception from a study which involved focus groups and media labs in four European countries. While Europeana was positively perceived by all groups in the beginning of the study, some groups were more critical after performing a task which involved eight types of searches. The study gathered opinions on the difficulties encountered which help to understand better users’ expectations within the content and functionality domains of digital libraries which would be of possible interest to all stakeholders in digital library projects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 74.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Adams, A., Blandford, A.: Digital libraries support for the user’s ‘Information Journey’. In: 5th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2005), pp. 160–169. ACM, New York (2005), www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/annb/docs/aaabJCDL05preprint.pdf

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Bertot, J.C., Snead, J.T., Jaeger, P.T., McClure, C.R.: Functionality, usability, and accessibility Iterative user-centered evaluation strategies for digital libraries. Performance Measurement and Metrics 7(1), 17–28 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Blandford, A., Buchanan, G.: Usability of digital libraries: a source of creative tensions with technical developments. TCDL Bulletin (2003), www.ieee-tcdl.org/Bulletin/current/blandford/blandford.htm

  4. Bollen, J., Luce, R.: Evaluation of digital library impact and user communities by analysis of usage patterns. D-Lib Magazine 8, 6 (2002), www.dlib.org/dlib/june02/bollen/06bollen.html

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Chowdhury, G.G.: Access and usability issues of scholarly electronic publications. In: Gorman, G.E., Rowland, F. (eds.) International Yearbook of Library and Information Management, 2004/2005, pp. 77–98. Facet Publishing, London (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Chowdhury, G.G.: From digital libraries to digital preservation research: the importance of users and context. Journal of documentation 66(2), 207–223 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chowdhury, G.G., Chowdhury, S.: Introduction to Digital Libraries. Facet Publishing, London (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Chowdhury, S., Landoni, M., Gibb, F.: Usability and impact of digital libraries: a review. Online Information Review 30(6), 656–680 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Dillon, A.: Evaluating on TIME: a framework for the expert evaluation of digital interface usability. International Journal on Digital Libraries 2(2/3) (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Dobreva, M., McCulloch, E., Birrell, D., Feliciati, P., Ruthven, I., Sykes, J., Ünal, Y.: User and Functional Testing. Final report (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Duncker, E., Theng, Y.L., Mohd-Nasir, N.: Cultural usability in digital libraries. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science 26(4), 21–22 (2000), www.asis.org/Bulletin/May-00/duncker__et_al.html

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Europeana, http://www.europeana.eu/portal/

  13. Europe’s information society: Thematic portal, http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/europeana/index_en.htm

  14. Khoo, M., Buchanan, G., Cunningham, S.J.: Lightweight User-Friendly Evaluation Knowledge for Digital Librarians. D-Lib Magazine 15(7/8) (2009), http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july09/khoo/07khoo.html

  15. Europeana online survey research report, http://www.edlfoundation.eu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=e165f7f8-981a-436b-8179-d27ec952b8aa&groupId=10602

  16. Stelmaszewska, H., Blandford, A.: Patterns of interactions: user behaviour in response to search results (2002), www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/annb/DLUsability/Stelmaszewska29.pdf

  17. Sumner, T.: Report. In: 5th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2005). ACM, New York (2005); D-Lib Magazine. 11, 7/8, (2005), www.dlib.org/dlib/july05/sumner/07sumner.html

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR), Information Resources Directorate (IRD), University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XH, United Kingdom

    Milena Dobreva

  2. Information and Knowledge Management, University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW, 2007, Australia

    Sudatta Chowdhury

Authors
  1. Milena Dobreva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sudatta Chowdhury
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123, 2007, Broadway, NSW, Australia

    Gobinda Chowdhury

  2. Nanyang Technological University, 31 Nanyang Link, 637718, Singapore

    Chris Koo

  3. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

    Jane Hunter

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Dobreva, M., Chowdhury, S. (2010). A User-Centric Evaluation of the Europeana Digital Library. In: Chowdhury, G., Koo, C., Hunter, J. (eds) The Role of Digital Libraries in a Time of Global Change. ICADL 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6102. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13654-2_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13654-2_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-13653-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-13654-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation