Monographs are increasingly making the print-to-digital shift that journals started twenty years ago, but many online platforms for monographs arguably do not take full advantage of the digital environment. In October 2016, JSTOR Labs, an experimental platform development group at JSTOR, convened a group of scholars, librarians, and publishers to unpack the design issues around the presentation of digital monographs. The group proposed a set of principles for reimagining the presentation of monographs in order to improve the user experience and increase the value of ebooks to scholars and students. This talk introduces that project, and then leads the audience through a similar design-thinking exercise to brainstorm new ways to help researchers authoring and researching scholarly books. Last, the presentation included audience-participation voting on four potential follow-on projects. These slides show the results of that voting.
2. ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the academic
community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record
and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit
digital library of academic
journals, books, and
primary sources.
Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit
research and consulting
service that helps academic,
cultural, and publishing
communities thrive in the
digital environment.
Portico is a not-for-profit
preservation service for
digital publications, including
electronic journals, books,
and historical collections.
Artstor provides 2+ million
high-quality images and
digital asset management
software to enhance
scholarship and teaching.
3. JSTOR Labs works with partner publishers, libraries and
labs to create tools for researchers, teachers and students
that are immediately useful – and a little bit magical.
6. WHITE PAPER
Currently released
as a draft for comment
Describes the
project, process & prototype
Includes 13 principles
to consider when
reimagining the monograph
To be released June 12, 2017
labs.jstor.org/monograph
8. WHAT’S AN
IDEA JAM* AND
WHY WOULD
I WANT ONE?
• A structured brainstorming activity
• You don’t want to decide too quickly
what you’re doing
• The more ideas you generate, the
more you have to choose from
* Also called a Design Jam, or a Design Studio,
or many other things.
10. STEP 2: GENERATE IDEAS!
Activity: 8 x 8’s
Work individually
Draw 8 ideas in 8 minutes
Share your ideas
(usually: rinse, repeat)
Guidelines:
• You must draw!
• If stuck, go back to the user
• Don’t worry…
- about feasibility
- whether it’s a good idea
11. TABLE ASSIGNMENTS
1
As a writer, I want to author books that represent my research
and perspective.
2
As a fellow scholar, I want to provide a review of a book that helps
the original author, the editor and the broader community.
3
As a researcher, I want to find books that are relevant to my
research interests without being overwhelmed by ”the firehose.”
4
As a researcher, I want to read books in a way that aligns with my
research practices.
12. STEP 3: AGREE ON IDEAS
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
Activity: Dot-voting
Everyone gets 3 dot-stickers
Put your stickers next to the
ideas that most excite you
Preliminary user research with scholars and graduate students to get a sense of the ways in which they use scholarly monographs.
User Profiles:
As a writer, I want to author: Karen and Angela
As a scholar, I want to peer review: Aaron and Karen
As an author, I want to promote: Karen and Aaron
As a researcher I want to discover: Tiffany and Aaron
As a researcher I want to read: Beth and Andrea
We’re going to do with you what we did the day after the Columbia workshop. We’re going to go through 4 different ideas – we’ll vote on each individually, and then ask a few questions about all of them together. We want feedback on the ideas, not the sketches or designs themselves.
The Book as Gateway. Use a single book to discover and browse related material by subject or topic. This sketch shows one way we might do that: start with the whole book or select the most relevant chapters, then flag if you want to find content in jstor, your library or all of OCLC. You can then browse the Library of Congress shelf or browse a custom, virtual shelf based on a collection of topics and terms you’re interested in.
The Book Dashboard lets you dive into a book and slice and dice it in a dozen different ways. This sketch shows one way we might do that: a dashboard page showing topics, people, places, related content, citations, and statistically improbably phrases. Look at these over the whole book, or drill into just one chapter or section to see the detail.
The Scholarly Reader is a Kindle for scholarly reading. For example, it might have a clean reading experience, but double tap a section to flag it for later, highlight to annotate. Swipe up to navigate the book or discovery related material. Swipe down to see notes – both the author’s and your own annotations. You can export your notes and citations or sync them with your research manager.
The Citation Mixer lets you make a list of books and articles and then analyze the combined set of references. For example, once you have a list, it might sort through them to find the most commonly-cited articles and book, showing both direct references and indirect references.