Monday, November 28, 2005

Report: A Textured Sculpture: The Information Needs of End-Users of Digitised Collections of New Zealand Cultural Heritage Resources

I'm late in posting about this, but -- as the saying goes -- better late than never.

According to the NZ web site:
In 2004-05 the National Library continued to support research into library and information studies through commissioning the School of Information Management at Victoria University of Wellington to investigate the needs of end users of digitised cultural heritage collections. The report is presented here in its final version.

Results from the surveys and interviews indicate that digital access is indispensable to cultural heritage research. However, participants also identified a number of barriers to digital access, some that are more generic, and others that are more relevant to scholarly historical research. The importance of New Zealand primary documents for cultural heritage research is repeatedly mentioned by participants, with particular emphasis on image sources (i.e. maps, photographs), newspapers, and all Māori cultural materials.
The full report and an eight-page summary are available. Included in the full report are the survey questions used with the end-users.

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