L.P. Coladangelo

Aligned to PLOs 4 & 5

Both this individual digital library collection and a larger digital library group project (of which the collection was a part), were created for LIS 60638 Digital Libraries.  The process began through the development of personas to identify a hypothetical user for each individual digital collection and one for the group digital library.  User personas guided the functional requirements that would need to be met at the collection level and overall library level of the entire system.  The digital collection I created was for enthusiasts of Disney memorabilia, while the three other students in the group had collections focused on people interested in paintings, drawings, prints, rare books, and other cultural objects.  Once our user requirements were set, collection development and management policies were written to administer each individual collection and the digital library as a whole.  The group also created a digitization policy and a metadata policy to ensure the quality of digital objects and the interoperability of metadata descriptions across all levels of the system would meet the needs of our hypothetical users.  Objects were digitized according to policy benchmarks and specifications, described using the group metadata application profile, and curated in collection level web interfaces.  Those collections and their objects were then aggregated and integrated at the group level to create a unified digital library, the Art and Cultural Objects Digital Library (ACODL).  The group also identified value added services (like reference services and expert blog posts) and accessibility technologies (like text to speech, screen magnification, and automated translations) for the digital library that would make our system and its user interface better able to serve a wider array of user needs.  Finally, the group developed an evaluation policy to determine important areas in which to measure the success of the digital library with quantifiable metrics and qualitative data collection to inform future management and policy decisions.