Digital Library Assessment

dlf-assessment-pie-chart-transparentDLF seeks to facilitate conversations and activities related to digital library assessment. To take part, join the Digital Library Assessment Interest Group (DLF AIG) discussion forum, which is open to anyone interested in learning about or collaborating on the improvement of this work!

More background, working groups, and projects: Research and cultural heritage institutions are, as a matter of course, providing online access to converted and born-digital scholarly and cultural content. As the amount of that content continues to grow, there is an increased need to standardize our assessment efforts in a more strategic way. This interest group is working on methods to measure the impact of digital collections; developing areas of commonality and benchmarks in how we measure collections across various platforms; understanding cost and benefit of digital collections; and exploring how can we best collect, analyze, communicate, and share such information effectively across our various stakeholders—from collection managers to scholars.

The DLF AIG was formed in 2014 as an informal interest group within the larger DLF community. The group meets during the DLF Forum to share problems, ideas, and solutions. The group also has a dedicated Google Group, DLF-supported wiki, a Slack workspace (sign up here), and project documentation available in the Open Science Framework.

The group is open to anyone interested in learning about or collaborating on the improvement of digital library assessment. Current working groups are focusing on tools and best-practices documents to:

The Assessment Interest Group is actively engaged in creating products and literature to assist with the assessment of digital libraries. Here are white papers, annotated bibliographies, project documentation, and additional resources developed by DLF AIG working groups:

Opportunities for feedback and contributions

Best Practices for Developing Personas in Digital Libraries (2018)

Journey Mapping (2018)

Metadata Application Profile Clearinghouse (2017) (Contribute here)

Annotated Bibliography for Cultural Assessment of Digital Collections (2017) (Contribute here)

Metadata Assessment Literature Review & Environmental Scan (2016) (Contribute here)

Assessment Resources

Metadata assessment tools wiki (2022)

Setting a Foundation for Assessing Content Reuse: A White Paper from the Developing a Framework for Measuring Reuse (2018)

The Digitization Cost Calculator project (2014-2018)

Metadata Assessment Framework and Guidance (2017)

Developing a Framework for Measuring Reuse of Digital Objects (2017)

Web Analytics Annotated Resource List (2016-2017) (Contribute directly to the document)

Surveying the Landscape: Use and Usability Assessment of Digital Libraries (2015)

DLF User Studies in Digital Libraries Bibliography (2015)

Best Practices for Google Analytics in Digital Libraries (2015)

Altmetrics and analytics for digital special collections and institutional repositories (2015)

Guidelines for citing library-hosted, unique digital assets (2015)

Digitization projects: processes and definitions (2015)

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