Finding aid as interface? Enhancing K‐12 access to digitized cultural heritage resources through adaptive systems technology: An exploratory study

Abstract

To what extent must diverse users adapt themselves to singular one‐interface systems, and in what ways does this impede access and use? In a perfect world of adaptive systems, backend architecture structuring digital information would be accessible through multiple user interfaces that support the literacy levels, technological capabilities and other characteristics of different user groups. Collaborating with the California Digital Library, usability testing was conducted with 4th and 12th graders to compare the effectiveness of an existing finding aid‐based interface with a newly developed prototype interfaco in retrieving cultural heritage information. Findings inform the growing number of efforts by cultural heritage communities—including libraries, archives, museums, and community organizations—to create broader access to their rich resources through digitization.

The Role of Archives and Special Collections in K-12 Instruction

“…Other studies have also found that teachers have difficulty identifying relevant primary sources in digital archives and using finding aids to access primary sources (Garcia, 2015; A. J. Gilliland-Swetland, Kafai, & Landis, 1999Lyons, 2002). Students also had difficulty navigating finding aids (Besser et al, 2003). Two studies (Besser et al, 2003;Pattuelli, 2011) offer models for how K-12 teachers and students can collaborate with archives to enhance access to digitized primary sources via user studies.…”

“…Students also had difficulty navigating finding aids (Besser et al, 2003). Two studies (Besser et al, 2003;Pattuelli, 2011) offer models for how K-12 teachers and students can collaborate with archives to enhance access to digitized primary sources via user studies. Besser and colleagues (2003) designed a usability test in which fourth grade and twelfth grade students were asked to find specific images in the Online Archive of California using an existing finding aid in the spring of 2002; in the fall of the same year, a different set of students in the same grades used a prototype finding aid for the same task, in order to compare the effectiveness of the original finding aid to the prototype.…”