Homework 1

• Homework 1 overview [3:51 minutes]

Each group is assigned a digital library to evaluate. Students will need to address the questions below, and present to the class on the disccusion board. Answer the questions in your own words, in complete sentences, and don’t merely copy and paste text from the site documentation. Each group must divide up the questions equally as best you can, and present in writing in a forum in Brightspace Discussions. Nominate a person from your group to post your assignment to a thread on the discussion forum for "Homework 1". Please list your name with the section you worked on. You are welcome to use screen shots in the discussion post. Post under your group name (i.e. "Group 2 final submission"). If you have a question, post it to the HW 1 forum. Please feel free to include screenshots or anything a/v related that enhances your report.

• Feel free to conduct homework discussion on your assigned thread, create a new thread, or discuss over email.

Assigned digital libraries:

• Group 1: (Kenvin Allwood, Midge Barton, & Abby Burnett) Project Gutenberg
• Group 2: (Olivia Coleman, Sydney Contreras & Raquel Espasande) CALI-SPHERE
• Group 3: (Cassandra Lemmon, Anna Howard & Emilyann Kerr ) DPLA
• Group 4: (Bonnie Kirkland, Alex LeGrys & Ceili Lynch ) Duchas Project
• Group 5: (Grace Mayo, Bri McIntire & Dylan Perry) Science History Institute
• Group 6: (Katherine Shannon, Meghan Simone & Murphy Sorich) SlaveVoyages
• Group 7: (Gerald Ulysses, Alexandra Urem & Juliette Vallet) Perseus Digital Library

Part 1 Institution

• Who owns and manages the digital library?
• What is the scope, purpose, and mission of the repository?
• Does it have an audience? or What community does it serve?
• How old is the digital library? If there is no date, can you infer one? or judge its “dated” quality or perhaps it features current best practices.
• Where does it fit in the organizational chart of the institution?
• How is it funded? (Internally/institutional, grant, consortia)
• Is it one all-encompassing digital library or many?
• How many staff members? What are their roles/job titles?

Part 2 Digital Materials and Scope

• What kinds of materials are housed (audio, text, video, images etc.)?
• Can you estimate how many objects are contained in the repository?
• Are the materials archival, scientific, data? Describe the type of content.
• On a spectrum of “highly curated” to a “clearing house of everything”, where does this library reside? Briefly explain why.
• Is it one digital library or perhaps multiple ones?
• Based on your own experience, best describe the community of users for this library, general audience? scholars? K-12?
• Can you describe the viewer functionality for the digital objects? Is it merely a thumbnail of the image or something you can zoom in, resize the object, maybe a “playlist” If it’s a magazine, is there an ability to “thumb” through the pages or have a page turner?

Part 3 Technical Infrastructure, Search and User Interface

• Is the system a open source product? In-house designed? or Proprietary?
• Are they "harvesting" metadata/digital materials from other collections? If so, please describe.
• Can you browse? keyword search? faceted search?
• Describe briefly any digitization standards, equipment, or standards, at least what you can infer.
• Can you identify the metadata standard? If so, describe.
• Is there a guide to searching techniques?
• Briefly, do you feel the website has a good user interface, look and feel?
• In an About page for example, can learn other features that are technical related?

This assignment is worth 10 points.

Due Tuesday, June 3rd by 9am