Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation (review)

Lest the reader be confused, this book is less about current use of digital libraries and much more about current theory and practice in the design of digital libraries. The contributors largely share a common perspective that design is most appropriately motivated by some consideration of social systems, social practice, or, in more common parlance, work environments. In many cases discussed within the volume, potential users' practices, needs, and activities are used as the foundation for various design approaches or for analysis of the success of existing digital libraries. As several chapter authors themselves note, this approach is quite different from classic user studies or usability studies in the tradition of computer interface design.

As with any edited volume, the chapters vary in focus, approach, significance, and quality. However, the contributors represent a significant cross section of the researchers active in the field of digital library design today. Consequently, this work provides a sense of the state of the art of socially grounded digital library research, as well as introductions to many of the most influential of the early digital library projects.

One of the strengths of this work is that, in many cases, the contributors provide an engaging combination of theory and description of one or more digital library projects in which the author has participated. The conscious emphasis on socio-technical approaches, where social context is given equal weight to technological considerations, is usually enhanced by the connection with specific digital library contexts. The chapters generally emphasize the complexity of the environments shaping digital libraries and the frequently immature state of knowledge in this arena.

Several common threads weave across various chapters, lending further unity to the work. For instance the conundrum of defining the term digital library is discussed repeatedly. While the definition applied in various chapters is eclectic, the variability the reader confronts highlights the complexities presented by these evolving information systems. The importance of boundaries, their nature in digital libraries, and the effects of digital libraries on boundaries within users' work systems emerge as other recurrent themes. While the concept of boundaries is the main topic of the chapter by Catherine C. Marshall, Nancy A. Van House presents some very cogent observations on boundary issues, and several other chapters touch on this theme as well (David M. Levy; Susan Leigh Star, Geoffrey C. Bowker, and Laura J. Neumann; and Ann Peterson Bishop, Bharat Mehra, Imani Bazzell, and Cynthia Smith). Various content issues recur, as well. Christine Borgman emphasizes the importance of content; Gary Marchionini, Catherine Plaisant, and Anita Komlodi explore the relation between content and use; and Van House considers users' concerns with regard to trust in content. Levy challenges our traditional understanding of documents, while Clifford Lynch challenges many researchers' assumption about the directness of the relationship between content and users.

To my mind, the most thought-provoking chapter in the book is Lynch's discussion of how what he labels "the real world" collides with models and theory derived from the small test-bed types of projects researchers typically study. "Real world" digital libraries tend to be developed as commercial information services aimed at lucrative markets among professions or disciplines (think Lexis or Westlaw) as extensions of traditional libraries (such as research or academic libraries) or as politically shaped projects, such as the work of the National Library of Medicine or ERIC (at the national level) or various state-level projects, such as Ohiolink, the California Digital Library, or SAILOR (in Maryland). The value of socially grounded design lies, in part, in its systems-based understanding of use. As Lynch rightly observes, the systems considered in test-bed types of projects are still significantly constrained in their simplifications and lack of consideration of such realities as the need for viable business models or issues of governance and control of the design and development process. For "real-world" digital libraries, institutional needs...