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Library and its Users

Notes the user an integrated means of locating information about a geographic location. This geo-spatial
approach to digital library information management and retrieval presents a new environment for
users. Studies showing how the geolibrary approach will affect user work practices are just beginning.
ADL has proven to be a rich environment to begin to learn how users will use such a system, what
they would like for it to be able to do, and how they react to the iterative designs of a developing
geolibrary prototype.

This first describes the evolution of the ADL system and interface design and then
provides a brief overview of the research and test bed activities. Descriptions are
then given for ADL’s three primary user communities (earth scientists, information
specialists, and educators), the user evaluation methodologies applied, and the
findings from working with these user groups. Finally, some thoughts are proposed
about the potential impacts of geolibraries (ADL in particular) on user communities,
on research libraries, and on teaching.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. The Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) is a ...... .
2. Geographic footprints can be applied to both ...... and ...... COs.

10.1 Evolution of the System and Interface Design

The ADL is one of the six digital library funded by NSF, DARPA, and NASA. ADL’s collection and
services focus on geo referenced information: maps, images, data sets, text, and other information
sources with links to geographic locations. The ideas for ADL grew out of a previous project funded
by the Research Libraries Group known as GRIN—the Geographic Resources Information Network
(Research Libraries Group, 1989). The first ADL prototype was called the Rapid Prototype and was
distributed on CD-ROM (Alexandria Digital Library—UCSB, 1995). This was followed by a WWW
version, known as the beta web prototype, in 1996 (Smith, et al., 1996).
The web prototype was accompanied by an active user evaluation phase that included:
(1) collecting data about the beta testers (anyone who signed up to use the web prototype),
(2) an on-line survey of beta testers,
(3) target user groups, and
(4) ethnographic studies (Hill et al., 1997).
There were also three ADL Design Review meetings during this time that brought together invited
parties to discuss and advise on the goals and the progress of the project. Two of these took place
over several days, and involved 30–50 people; the third was a panel of system designers who met
for 2 days to advise on system specifications.
The results of these user evaluations were fed back into the design of the current Java-based interface
and supporting system, which has been subjected to two formal internal evaluations involving
personnel from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and University of Colorado at
Boulder. The Java user interface client, known as JIGI for “Java Interface to Geospatial Information,”
has undergone numerous interim releases. The database and middleware components of the system
have been redesigned and the collections of data and metadata continue to grow in complexity.

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