What Children Can Teach Us: Developing Digital Libraries for Children with Children

Abstract

At the University of Maryland, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from information studies, computer science, education, art, and psychology work together with seven children (ages 7-11) to design new digital libraries for children. Working with children has led to new approaches to collection development, cataloging (metadata standards), and the creation of new technologies for information access and use. This paper presents a discussion of the interdisciplinary research landscape that contributes to our understanding of digital libraries for children; examines a case study on the development of the International Children's Digital Library; and discusses the implications from this research as they relate to new technology design methods with children and new directions for future digital libraries. Recent studies have shown that children (ages 7-13) have a strongly positive view of technology and that technology is a key part of how they define themselves (Center for

Diving in at the Deep End

“…To our knowledge, alternative approaches to systematic search of library catalogs in-situ are underexplored. The few exceptions to this are (book) search interfaces that have been designed with young audiences in mind [11,12,14,19]. While our work is inspired by approaches which incorporate the use of novel technology such as direct-touch displays [15,39], RFID sensing [8], tangible tokens [11], or interactive floor systems [14] to promote engagement, we focus on alternative search systems that support systematic, faceted search.…”

Investigating the impact of design processes on children

“…Within HCI there is research which explores design processes; however, these works often do not explore the impact that the process has on its participants, and rather focus on the process itself. In papers that report on the process used to design technology, there are some which informally report benefits to children involved as design partners in technology design processes, such as [3,4,6,13]. The discussion of impacts on children in the design process in these papers tends to be secondary to the discussion of the design methods or process itself.…”

“…Most data collection on this phenomenon has been through self-report of the children and informal observation of the children by the adults on the team [3,4,6,13]. These methods are appropriate in initial and informal investigations and as additions to existing research, as they were in these studies.…”

JavaScript tools for online information retrieval

“…This convinced the ICDL development team to reconsider the importance of developing tools for broad access. In addition, by having both versions, the team has been able to learn a great deal about the profile of users who use what with regard to country of origin, categories of use, etc as opposed to dial-up (Druin, 2005). …”