Transforming the crazy quilt: Archival displays from a users' point of view

Archivaria

Volumn 45, Issue , 1998, Pages 44-79

  Duff, Wendy ^a   Stoyanova, Penka ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

^b CREDIT VALLEY HOSPITAL   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 23944499706     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. The authors would like to thank Joan Cherry, Annie Lek, and Rick Kodak for their assistance with, and advice concerning the design of the research study. They would like to also thank Lisa Weber, Hugo Stab, and the reviewers for their comments on the paper.
2. Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards, Toward Descriptive Standards: Report and Recommendations of the Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards (Ottawa, 1985). p. 9.
3. Frederic M. Miller, Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts (Chicago, 1990). p. 79.
4. Caiman states that "RAD descriptions themselves are remarkably self-explanatory and need very little interpretation for users. " Susan M. Caiman, "RAD and the Researcher, " Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994). p. 109.
5. Lemieux suggests that many of RAD elements are "of little use to the genealogical researcher" and in creating a thematic guide for genealogy she performed "RADical surgery" to RAD to "meet the perceived needs of our audience. "
6. Victoria Lemieux, "RADical Surgery: A Case Study in Using RAD to Produce a Thematic Guide, " Archivaria 39 (Spring1995). pp. 51-69.
7. General international Standard Archival Description (Ottawa, 1994).
8. For a discussion of the role of input standards and output guidelines see Wendy M. Duff and Kent M. Haworth, "Advancing Archival Description: A Model for Rationalising North American Descriptive Standards, " Archives and Manuscripts 25 (November 1997). pp. 194-217.
9. "Recommendations of the Working Group on Standards for Archival Description, " American Archivist 52 (Fall 1989), p. 473
10. Young and Wiltshire Management Consultants, Evaluation of the Control, Sub-Activity at the National Archives of Canada: Final Report (1992). p. 12.
11. Robert P. Spindler and Richard Peace-Moses, "Does AMC Mean 'Archives Made Confusing'? Patron Understanding of USMARC AMC Catalog Records, " American Archivist 56 (Spring 1993). pp. 330-41.
12. W. Crawford, L. Stovel, & K. Bales, Bibliographic Displays in the Online Catalog (White Plains, 1986).
13. Nancy Lee Shires and Lydia P. Olszak, "What Our Screens Should Look Like: An Introduction to Effective OPAC Screens, " RQ 31 (1992). pp. 351-69.
14. W.O. Galitz, Handbook of Screen Format Design 3rd ed. (Wellesley, 1989).
15. Shires & Olszak, "What Our Screens Should Look Like, " p. 359.
16. Walt Crawford, "Starting Over: Current Issues in Online Catalog User Interface Design, " Information Technology and Libraries 11 (March 1992). pp. 63-76.
17. Juliana Chan, "An Evaluation of Displays of Bibliographic Records in OPACs in Canadian Academic and Public Libraries, " (Master's Thesis, University of Toronto, 1995).
18. Annie Lek, Evaluating Bibliographic Displays from the Users' point of view: A focus group study (Master of Information Science Research Project Report, University of Toronto, Toronto, January 1996). available at http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/research/displays/annie2.htm.
19. David L. Morgan, Focus Groups as Qualitative Research (Quality Research Methods Series) (Newbury Parke,-1988)p. 24.
20. Richard A. Krueger, Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research (Newbury Park,-1988)p. 20.
21. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
22. The archives and individuals who created the displays used in this study had different systems, but the archives, not the systems determined the format of the displays. Gencat, Inmagic, Sirisi, and Panorama Pro have the functionality to present any one of the displays. This study evaluated displays specified by archivists and not the systems' capabilities.
23. Juliana Chan, An Evaluation of Displays of Bibliographic Records.
24. In fact, Archives of Ontario internet screens include fonds and record group codes, as well as guides to the availability and location of finding aids.
25. General International Standard Archival Description (Ottawa, 1994).