User studies are a rather neglected field in the archival area. This is becoming problematic, as more and more archives are developing online services and collections, becoming available to wider public. We can assume that this transformation will affect archival practice, much like in libraries, and require more knowledge of users' needs, behavior, and skills. It is unclear how much archivists are aware of these developments. This is particularly the case in those countries where archives have only recently started to consider digitization and online presence and where no user studies have yet been made, like Slovenia (SLO) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), the focus of this study. A qualitative study is presented which deals with the archivists' perceptions, within the context of physical and digital archives, of the characteristics of the users, archivists' educational opportunities regarding user-related issues, and competences needed by professional archivists and by users. Data were collected with interviews and surveys. The results enable an initial insight into archival user types and their characteristics, and the formation of a competence model for a professional archivist. The results have implications for archival theory, practice and education and can also be used in planning future archival user studies.
COBISS.SI-ID: 57851490
The methodology presented in this paper is based on concept mapping, which is a technique for representing knowledge in graphs. Its applications are broaderand cover, in addition to presentation of knowledge, the complex organization of systems such as web sites. The paper presents a method for reaching consensus from several organizations of data/web site independently produced by different people. A class of methods was initiated, considering a number of parameters that can be chosen in order to match closely any specificreal-life application. Although the methodology can be fully automated in terms of a suitable computer program, it is meant to be mainly a useful tool for experts in web site organization.
COBISS.SI-ID: 51728482
Purpose: Despite the importance of bibliographic information systems for discovering and exploring library resources, some of the core functionality that should be provided to support users in their information seeking process is still missing. Investigating these issues, the aim of our research was to design a solution that would fulfil the missing objectives. Design/methodology/approach: Building on the concepts of a work family, FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) and information visualization, the paper proposes a model and user interface design that could support a more efficient and user friendly presentation and navigation in bibliographic information systems. Findings: The proposed design brings together all versions of a work, related works, and other works by and about the author and shows how the model was implemented into a FrbrVis prototype system using hierarchical visualization layout. Research limitations/implications: Although issues related to discovery and exploration apply to various material types, our research first focused on works of fiction and was also limited by the selected sample of records. Practical implications: The model for presenting and interacting with FRBR-based data can serve as a good starting point for future developments and implementations. Originality/value: With FRBR concepts being gradually integrated into cataloguing rules, formats, and various bibliographic services, one of the important questions that has not really been investigated and studied is how the new type of data would be presented to users in a way that would exploit the true potential of the changes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 60089954
Since their beginnings, bibliographic information systems have been displaying results in the form of long, textual lists. With the development of new data models and computer technologies, the need for new approaches to present and interact with bibliographic data has slowly been maturing. To investigate how this could be accomplished, a prototype system, FrbrVis, was designed to present work families within a bibliographic information system using information visualization. This paper reports on two user studies, a controlled and an observational experiment, that have been carried out to assess the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)-based against an existing system as well as to test four different hierarchical visual layouts. The results clearly show that FrbrVis offers better performance and user experience compared to the baseline system. The differences between the four hierarchical visualizations (Indented tree, Radial tree, Circlepack, and Sunburst) were, on the other hand, not as pronounced, but the Indented tree and Sunburst design proved to be the most successful, both in performance as well as user perception. The paper therefore not only evaluates the application of a visual presentation of bibliographic work families, but also provides valuable results regarding the performance and user acceptance of individual hierarchical visualization techniques.
COBISS.SI-ID: 60841826
Purpose: We present an adapted form of a qualitative research method, focus group interview, for use with small children, and demonstrate its use in a small-scale study. Researchers often avoid direct study of children, and study them indirectly by asking adults. This was frequent before 1990s, but today, researchers increasingly discuss research with children rather than on children. Nevertheless, in research with young children it is not possible to use all research methods, therefore we modified and tested one. Our additional research objectives, besides verification of methodology, were to determine the pre-school children%s attitudes to books, book-related places, reading. Design/methodology/approach: The adaptation of the focus group interview involved merging the content questions of our research with a story and using a toy as the storyteller. This resembled storytelling and enabled the children to directly participate by talking to the animation toy instead of the researcher. We tested the method on a purposive sample of 13 pre-school children aged 4 and 5 in one public kindergarten. Findings: Despite of the belief of some experts, who claim that focus group interview is not an appropriate method to explore habits or opinions of children, we found that adaptation of this method for the use with small children by means of storytelling and toy animation brings positive results because it enabled gathering data directly from the children.. The content results show positive attitudes toward books and reading, differences in reading interests between boys and girls, daily exposure to books and reading, both in kindergarten and at home, and quite good knowledge of book-related places, especially libraries, somewhat less bookstores. Research limitations/implications: Since this is only the first attempt to use this adapted methodological approach, it is necessary that the method is tested on different user groups and in different circumstances to further validate its suitability for this user group. Regarding the content of the study, the results cannot be generalized due to non-probability purposive sampling. Originality/value: This is the first attempt to use the adapted methodological approach for researching young children. Our research may serve as a beginning and incentive for further research in this area, since only high quality results provide good modifications and adaptations of educational programs and activities to ensure proper development of children's reading competences and attitudes to books and reading.
COBISS.SI-ID: 58201698