Towards critically addressable data for digital library user studies

Gooding, P. (2022) Towards critically addressable data for digital library user studies. In: Jaillant, L. (ed.) Archives, Access and Artificial Intelligence: Working with Born-Digital and Digitized Archival Collection. Series: Digital Humanities Research, 2 (2). Bielefeld University Press, pp. 109-130. ISBN 9783837655841 (doi: 10.1515/9783839455845-005)

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Abstract

This chapter addresses two key questions: what can the concept of the black box add to our understanding of library catalogues as data in digital library user studies? And how might datadriven approaches help us to increase the transparency of these black boxes and render them critically addressable? Libraries are complex systems comprising a complex interrelationship of staff, space, users and technical infrastructure. However, digital library user studies have not applied the same attention to the creation of large-scale datasets as they have to the ethical and methodological implications of reporting on them. This chapter positions the study of library catalogue data in relation to black box theory and the collections as data imperative. It argues that collaborations between data science, the critical digital humanities, and library and information science can help us to be more transparent in how we reuse catalogue data, and to redefine how this data is created, processed, and documented in the first place.

Item Type:Book Sections
Status:Published
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Gooding, Professor Paul
Authors: Gooding, P.
Subjects:Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science
Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > ZA Information resources
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Information Studies
Publisher:Bielefeld University Press
ISBN:9783837655841
Published Online:27 April 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License
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