Friday, 18 February 2011

Growing Knowledge: the evolution of research

Presentation by Matthew Shaw, Lead Curator, North American History, as part of Coalition for Social Science Libraries Study Day, British Library, February 17 2011.

  • An exhibition which is trying to find out how readers want to use technology / social media in their research, and modelling possible futures for readers to try. Examples used included:

Primo (shiny new BL catalogue in SOLO style)

UK Web archive (ongoing BL programme)

Codex Sinaiticus (augmented digitisation)

NYPL Map rectification (comparing old maps to geo-data)

London Lives (very searchable London social history)

Timescapes (study from Uni Leeds – data ownership issues)

MBS Portal (discussed in earlier blog post)

JoVE (Journal of Visualised Experiments)

  • Spaces / Places / Things

What is a library? What will it be in the future?

What kind of tech do people need for their research? Multiscreen PCs?

Findings: (skewed towards men, the over-40s, academics)

People liked:

  1. Mendeley
  2. JoVE
  3. UK Web Archive
  4. Anglo-Saxon England
  5. Silk Road
  6. Jane Austen

People disliked:

  1. BL Video Server (early functionality issues?)
  2. Crimean War
  3. eDance
  4. Galaxy Zoo

People didn't care about:

  1. Cite-u-Like
  2. Primo

No matter how intuitive things appear to their designers, people still want signage & hand-holding.

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