enhancing user services in the emblematica online portal
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2014 Society for Emblem Studies Meeting August 1, 2014
Today’s Talk
Background
Review of new functionalities
User Engagement Study
Forthcoming for Emblematica Online
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Emblematica Online I
Presented at 2011 SES meeting in Glasgow by Timothy Cole and MJ Han
Provided a single access pointto the indexed digitized emblem book collections of the HAB Wolfenbüttel and University of Illinois
Concluded in 2012: ~ 700 digitized books from HAB and Illinois collections, with a selection of cataloged emblems
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
http://emblematica.grainger.illinois.edu
Emblematica Online II
New phase funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Humanities Collections and Reference Resource program
New contributions of digitized emblem books from the Glasgow, Duke University, Utrecht, Getty Institute
New functionalities added to relaunched portal
Gathering use cases and conducting user engagement study to assess Emblematica
http://emblematica.library.illinois.edu
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Research on Use of Digital Resources in the Humanities Dobreva et al., User Studies for Digital Library
Development
Toms and O’Brien, “Understanding the information and communication technology needs of the e-humanist”
Log Analysis of Internet Resources in the Arts and Humanities Project (LAIRAH)
Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources (TIDSR)
Research Portals in the Arts and Humanities (REPAH)
Enhanced Search Interface
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
New Tabbed Interface
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Institutional Branding
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
User Assessment is Necessary
“While a greater reliance and dependency on digital resources is inevitable, the quality of the data and their organization and accessibility in service to teaching and scholarship are major concerns.
“Without the guiding voice of scholars, the tremendous effort now being devoted to digitizing our cultural heritage could in fact impede, not facilitate, future research.”
—Charles Henry, The Idea of Order: Transforming Research Collections for 21st Century Scholarship
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Scholars + Emblematica
“The thematic research collection has been recognized as an important genre…. it will play an important role in how research materials are reconfigured in the digital environment, as libraries become more involved in providing access to digital resources collected and organized by scholars, who contribute important expertise in selection, collocation, interpretation, and integration of the sources they study.”
—Carole Palmer et al. (2010), “Beyond Size and Search,” ASIST 2010
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
User Engagement Study
Two phases: Interviews and usability testing with students and scholars
Methodology: Semi-structured interviews with graduate students and scholars
Disciplines: English, art history, medieval studies, musicology, book history
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Goals of Study
Understand the research practices of humanities scholars who draw upon emblem books for research.
Understand behaviors of researchers working with Emblematica Online and similar digital archives.
Gather input from researchers to assess the new functionalities and services added to Emblematica Online, and determine future functionalities that could further enhance the portal.
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Use
To look up specific emblems and use as digital illustrations
To search for emblems on certain topics and themes
Challenge: Navigating the search interface and results
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Teaching
Use in undergraduate and graduate courses for:
Analyze an emblem in conjunction with Milton’s emblematic poetry
Emblems as an Illustrative tool for artistic styles and cultural mores of historical periods
A unit on emblems planned for an art history graduate seminar
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Research
Digitized emblem books enable access to archives normally requiring expensive travel around the world
A way to cultivate Latin language skills for reading early modern texts
Very interdisciplinary material—could see increase of emblem use in art, literary studies, history, cultural studies etc.
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Suggested Functionalities
Additional information about editions of the volumes
Enable annotations
Improve interface to make the search boxes easier to find
Make IconClass easier to use
Include information that provides historical context for the work/emblem (useful for students)
Impact on Field
Expand the use of emblems in research across multiple disciplines
Strong illustrative tool for teaching visual culture and cultural attitudes in early modern historical period
Increase the impact and prominence of scholarship in emblem studies
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
To Come Functionalities
Improved search speed
More emblem-level metadata
More IconClass cataloging
Annotation Tool
Collection Building tool
User Study
Fall 2014: Analysis of interview responses
Winter 2014: In-person usability testing of revised Emblematica Online portal
Full results of user study will be reported to NEH and in journal articles
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
To Remember
http://emblematica.library.illinois.edu
Fall / winter 2014 for launch of new portal
Contact me at green19@illinois.edu to share your feedback and thoughts about using Emblematica Online
@greenharr green19@illinois.edu
Thank you!
Harriett Green
English and Digital Humanities Librarian
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
green19@illinois.edu
Twitter: @greenharr
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