Towards a public library digital service taxonomy

Buchanan, S. and McMenemy, D. (2010) Towards a public library digital service taxonomy. In: Research and advanced technology for digital libraries. Lecture Notes in Computer Science . Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 425-428. ISBN 9783642154638

Abstract

Recent research has identified inconsistency of public library digital services, and associated problems of disparity and duplication, as a key usability issue. The hypothesis of this research is that root cause is inconsistent definition and specification of digital services, and that a service taxonomy would facilitate resolution of this issue, providing a classification scheme and controlled vocabulary. Reporting on initial research to validate this hypothesis, which examined options available from 8 of 32 Scottish public library homepages; evidence of inconsistency of terminology and organisation schemes was found, with navigation not always straightforward due to a high number of loosely structured options being available from the majority of sites sampled. Initial findings are discussed including planned second stage research.

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