While Kling’s paper brings up some good points, its obvious datedness (seriously, Mosaic? information superhighway?) gets distracting. I think it does a better job of showing where we were than where we ought to be going–unless Dr. He’s point in giving us this to read is to say “we really haven’t made much progress.” That would be unfortunate.
Saracevic raises the point that not much is being done, as far as evaluation of digital libraries goes. Or, more to the point, a lot of work is being done on how digital libraries might be evaluated, but the few people who are (or were, as of 2004) doing the evaluation are not really utilizing that work. The field of digital library evaluation sounds kind of scattered and hapless.
As far as the other articles/chapters (which I can’t link, either because the link to what we were supposed to read is broken, or because the resources are on Courseweb only), they seem to discuss usability in terms I’m more familiar with (and, I’ll be honest, more interested in). They point to websites and operating systems and say “See, this is well-done,” and “See, this isn’t.” As a particularly grumpy web user, I appreciate any effort to improve usability in websites.
Muddiest Point: I didn’t have one from last lecture, which I think I’ve already said. I do want to check and make sure I heard Dr. He right: we get midterm grades in two weeks? (Not trying to rush anyone, just to make sure my hearing’s good. :)) Thanks!
your hearing is good