Archivists
- Pam Gets an email from a researcher with a specific question (let’s detail that question here based on where we will run the tests). Runs the searches (let’s detail those searches) and consolidates the results into a response to email the researcher (turn this into a test). What does she want that list of results to look like? Is she going to provide the researcher with instructions to run their own searches, as well?
- Maynard Wants to quickly search by the specific record series number for the President George Stoddard Records to locate the correspondence series within that specific record group which he vaguely remembers as being 2/10/1. (turn this into a test) Can we get more information about what this information should look like on the records?
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Aimee This is someone who occasionally looks for something they need to support something else they are doing (e.g. a cool photo to post to social media, or a quote to support a speech. These uses are not in ASpace often and need to be fast when they are). How does Aimee want to see search results returned to her when looking for something to post to social media? If her search returns 100 results, how many of those will she actually look at? How will she quickly get the item she needs? Aimee might find it more useful in ArchivesSpace to browse and search through the digital objects module.
Nick Needs to be able to "save" or favorite archival objects, collections, and digital objects in a shopping cart or bookmarks for later viewing. Does he have some kind of account?
ASpace does not have user account functionality, so no. This would be a great feature to add. (Sue) Agreed! I've often thought it would be helpful if researchers could essentially create their own finding aids before repository visits. Rather than just sending bulk requests via Aeon before or during a visit, it would probably be helpful for them to pull together correspondence series, for instance, from multiple finding aids into a a single place that they can continue to consult even after they've handled the material physically in the reading room (and, of course, if they could attach their digital photographs to that new finding aid of theirs to organize their images, that might prove really useful to them, and even the repository, if that information could find its way back to the public interface that everyone uses). That said, accounts create a whole host of other complications. One example of not needing an account to create a permanent bookbag is here, via the "my list" feature: http://collections.si.edu/search/Ryan Wants to be able to pay fees online. Is this something that can already be done through ASpace? This brings up a LOT of considerations. What already exists? What do institutions do now?
Yale does not currently support online payments, but would very much like to, and is hoping to begin doing so using the functionality in Aeon (which already has the user accounts, history, and agreements necessary for such an endeavor) in the coming year. (Claryn)
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Stephan is an engineer researcher looking for the cost estimates used on an Air Force project from the 1970s. What does this workflow look like? How does he expect to see the results in ASpace? What will he do next once he gets those results?
Unless the material has been digitized, Stephan most likely won't see what he's looking for in ASpace. Instead, he would hope to get a good idea about where these materials might be in a collection (or multiple collections). If he can narrow down (by looking at the finding aid in ASpace and talking with reference staff) that the cost esitmates might be somewhere in boxes 5-10 in a collection, the next step would be to request those materials to the reading room. (someone else will need to chime in if they have an actual example finding aid that goes along with this use case, but I think that would really help illustrate the process / difficulty; my guess is that Stephen would probably start searching for any references to that air force project in ArchivesSpace).
Academic researcher - professor
Sally Wants to access digital images in the same place as the description, without having to click forward and back. She wants to see the finding aid, have the digital object open in a new window, and easily be able to close it to click on the next item from the finding aid. What about an overlay rather than a new window, since other personas indicate that new windows are a huge negative?
I agree that new windows are a huge negative for users who have difficulty navigating the web, and think an overlay would be great functionality! (Claryn)Wants to be able to find them directly by their call number which he knows already and request to use them in the archives classroom via AEON, the archive’s request system. Does ASpace already integrate this? Or is this done through a separate system? Use USC’s work to integrate Aeon (http://www.atlas-sys.com/aeon/ and https://github.com/smoil/aeon_requests)? ASpace does not integrate this. We used the ASpace API to construct a call request that pulls the info into Aeon. (Sue)
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Alex Will be frustrated if it isn't immediately obvious whether or not materials have been digitized. If materials have been digitized, this user wants to be able to access them instantly. (make this part of the same test above) What already exists in ASpace for this? What do users typically expect to see?
Alex Would like to be able to save and share links to finding aids that are of interest. What already exists in ASpace for this? What do users typically expect to see?
Madison Has great difficulty reading anything that isn’t transcribed. Should transcriptions be available on records (or are they already)? More information on what exists or should exist would be great.
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