Methodology

Ethnographic methodology will be employed to conduct observation and interviews, review documentation, and immerse in the community’s culture and the worldviews of members of the community. Surveys, focus groups and interviews will be used to gather information about:

• information needs and seeking behaviours
• the use of metadata standards and practices suitable for the ISR community
• resources and physical materials to be digitized and incorporated into the digital library

Grounded Theory will be used to analyze the qualitative data gathered in order to draw out dominant themes that represent information needs, behaviours and practices of the participants.

Finally, a user-centered evaluation of the digital library and metadata framework will be conducted to ensure its usability and usefulness.

Objectives

This project has eight key objectives to accomplish over a four-year time frame (2014-2018):

1. Investigate and identify the information needs and information seeking behaviour of community members in the ISR

2. Develop a digital library of information resources

3. Explore appropriate methodologies for treatment of cultural heritage information

4. Create a culturally appropriate metadata framework as a basis for resource description and discovery

5. Develop requirements for multilingual user interfaces that support the dominant languages

6. Conduct a user-centered evaluation of the digital library

7. Develop a sustainability strategy for the digital library to ensure long-term access to digital information

8. Provide training in information management to local project participants

Contributions

At a practical and local level, our project will contribute to the development of a digital library platform and community-driven metadata standard to support information organization, access and retrieval. The resulting product can function as a model for northern, remote, and/or rural regions, eventually forming a pan-Canadian system.

At a broader level, our project represents the following long-term social benefits:

• The enhancement of Canada’s digital content advantage, especially for a sector of society (i.e., Canada’s north) that currently experiences barriers to participate in digital economy
• The engagement with partners in the North—such as the ICRC—in exploring opportunities to impact lives and cultures in a positive way
• The development of a digital library infrastructure to support widespread dissemination of digital content and media

Project Timeline