Update on migration to new MWDL portal

The members of the Digitization Committee of the Utah Academic Library Consortium are conducting their review of the beta site for the Mountain West Digital Library in Ex Libris Primo. Curious about the types of issues they are noting? Anyone can access the list at MWDL Primo Issues and take a look. MWDL intern Trisha Hansen has set up a SurveyMonkey survey of Committee members about key aspects of the new portal, and those results will be available in the aggregate next week. Trisha is also working on the final touches for her in-person usability tests, which she will conduct with students and genealogists in the next few weeks at labs at both University of Utah and Brigham Young University. Meanwhile, Tracy Medley and the Primo team at UU-Marriott Library are working out various fine points about the code and display of the metadata. The beta site is available for the public to use, linked from the regular MWDL home page that still has the "old" search portal in PKP Open Archives Harvester. Searches are much faster in the new portal, and we have thousands more resources available. Wish us luck in making it to the finish!

"Soft-launch" of MWDL Primo

We have opened up public access to the beta site for the Primo search portal, linked from the Mountain West Digital Library home page. After two weeks of beta testing by the UALC Digitization Committee, there are only a few issues that remain to be resolved by the Primo team. The database available through PKP Open Archives Harvester for MWDL is seriously outdated -- the last harvest was in June 2010 -- and so it seemed like time to share the wealth of new resources and new functionality available through the beta Primo site. It will be interesting to see what comments we get about the new features and the enhanced quality of the metadata. (UALC Digitization Committee members, please complete the beta testers survey in SurveyMonkey if you haven't already. The address is in the UALC-DIGIT listserve reminder message sent out today.)

Usability Testing Project

We are fortunate to have Trisha Hansen interning this winter/spring with the Mountain West Digital Library. Trisha is a graduate student in the Emporia State University program and will earn her MLIS at the end of 2011.  Last fall, she approached Kenning Arlitsch and Sandra McIntyre about how she could learn more about digital libraries, and what has resulted is her extensive work on a usability testing project for MWDL, for which she will receive practicum credit at Emporia State.

This is valuable work, especially given the current migration to Ex Libris Primo for our search portal, and we are grateful that Trisha has contributed her considerable energies and enthusiasm toward it!  Many thanks also go to the University of Utah Marriott Library for agreeing to host Trisha in its IT Department, to Amanda Crittenden there for providing use of the Marriott's usability testing lab, and to Scott Eldredge and Brian Roberts at Brigham Young University Lee Library for providing a second usability lab and test subjects at BYU.

For more information on Trisha's project, see her "Mountain West Digital Library Usability Testing Project Plan" at http://mwdl.org/public/mwdl/MWDL_Usability_Testing_Project_Plan_v4.pdf. In it she discusses usability testing for digital libraries and explains why she chose three testing protocols -- heuristics evaluation, think-aloud testing, and feedback survey -- to delve into who our users are and how they are using MWDL. Please feel free to contact Trisha directly at trisha.hansen@utah.edu with any comments or questions about this plan. She will be delivering an interim report to us at the Digitization Committee spring meeting on April 27 and a final written analysis of her results this summer. In the meantime, please check this blog for developments!

Hosting hubs to test search engine optimization for digital repositories

Thanks again to all of you who responded to the invitation to be included in testing the strategies and tools for search engine optimization for digital repositories.  Here is the updated list of who will be involved: 

• Gina Strack at the Utah State Archives
• Catherine McIntyre at Utah Valley University Library
• Nancy Lombardo at Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah
• Kristen Jensen at Utah Department of Community and Culture 
• Cory Lampert at University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries
• Glee Willis at University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
• Jamie Weeks at Weber State University, Stewart Library
• Anne Morrow at Marriott Library, University of Utah

If there are others who would like to be involved, now or later, please let Sandra McIntyre (sandra.mcintyre@utah.edu) know of your interest.  Thanks.