Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-29-2021

Publication Title

Digital Library Perspectives

First page number:

1

Last page number:

28

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess the use of digital collections created via the large-scale digitization of archival collections. The large-scale digitization method specifically examined is the reuse of archival description from finding aids to create digital collections that consist mainly of compound digital objects, equivalent to a folder of items, minimally described at the aggregate level. This article compares web analytics data for two large-scale digital collections and one digital collection with rich, item-level description.

Design/methodology/approach: This study analyzed one year of web analytics for three digital collections. The main research question of this study is: Are digital collections of minimally described compound objects used less than digital collections of richly described single objects?

Findings: This study found that the large-scale digital collections analyzed received less use than the traditional item-level collection, when examined at the item-level. At the object-level, the largescale collections did not always receive less use than the traditional item-level collection.

Originality: This article is unique because it employs web analytics to compare the use of large-scale digital collections to the use of traditional boutique digital collections

Keywords

Web analytics; Access and use; Digital collections use; Digital objects; Large-scale digitization; Special collections and archives

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

File Format

pdf

File Size

1512 KB

Language

English

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