Influencing User Behavior through Digital Library Design: An Example from the Geosciences

Each of the elements of a digital library – its collections, the portals to those collections, and its supporting services – plays an important role in determining how the library is used and what impact it will have on users. In this article, we explore how the portal of a digital library can be designed to influence the behavior of its users. Our example is the Starting Point Digital Library (DL), an education digital library designed primarily for faculty who are teaching introductory level geoscience. Like many education digital libraries, we aspire to enhance teaching and learning in a realm of science [1, 2]. The specific goal of the Starting Point library is to increase faculty knowledge of the full range of teaching methods that can be used in their classes. With this knowledge they will be better positioned to design and implement introductory geoscience courses that support student learning. We draw on three powerful tools for designing and refining the library portal and its underlying information architecture: 1) techniques of user-centered design that engage users in design and testing [3, 4, 5, 6], research on the work needs and habits of targeted user groups [7], and evaluation techniques that use webmetrics to understand use patterns [8]. (Via D-Lib Magazine)