of libraries and labs: effecting user-driven innovation - rluk members mtg 2015
TRANSCRIPT
OF LIBRARIES& LABS: EFFECTING USER-DRIVEN INNOVATION
20 March 2015
Alex Humphreys, JSTOR Labs@abhumphreys
RLUK Members Meeting & AGM 2015
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.
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.
A new-ish team at ITHAKA
Mission: to seek out new concepts and opportunities, to refine and to validate them through research and experimentation.
Among our methods: Flash Builds*(or a version of them)
* We first heard of Flash Builds from Marty Cagan, describing the work of the Nordstrom Innovation Lab.
CASE STUDY #1: JSTOR SNAP
CASE STUDY #2: UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE
PARTNERSHIP W/ FOLGER
Folger Shakespeare Library
• Folger Digital Texts
• Shakespeare Quarterly
• Scholars and students
Objective: demonstrate the value of Folger Digital Texts to scholars and students and demonstrate how it can be cross-referenced with Shakespeare Quarterly.
JSTOR
• The full archive run of SQ
• 2000+ other journals
• A newly-formed Labs team
Objective: validate the value of using a primary text as a portal into secondary literature.
HOW WE DO IT
Prior to the Flash Build
1. Interviews with scholars
2. Create the data & infrastructure
During the Flash Build
3. Design jam
4. Paper prototypes
5. Low-fi prototypes
6. Working site
After the Flash Build
7. Polish & clean up
8. Release & measure
WHAT WE HAVE
Interviewswith scholarsand studentsevery day
• A small, diverse teamwith technical, design and business skills
• The ability to show work to users early and often with the whole team present
• A space to innovate:- Flexible technology that allows for componentization and continuous deployment- A safe-space to fail- Ability to focus
WHAT WE DO
LESSONS FOR LIBRARIES
1. Doing something is better than talking about it.
2. Libraries bring great assets to this kind of work:- special collections- physical spaces - access to faculty and students
3. Libraries have multiple paths to doing this work: - start your own lab- adopt these practices in existing teams- partner with another organization*
* Like JSTOR Labs!
4. It’s nice to hear someone say,
“Ohmigod, this is amazing!”
5. If you go fast enough, you can help people break out of old patterns.
6. This work suggests better ways to support digital humanities:- tools and content together - a model for partnering with scholars- lower barrier of entry to DH
THANK YOU
Alex HumphreysHead of JSTOR LabsITHAKA
labs.jstor.org
@abhumphreys
Further Reading
• The Lean Startup, Eric Ries
• Business Model Generation, Osterwalder & Pigneur
• Marty Cagan’s Blog: svpg.com/articles
• UX for Lean Startups, Laura Klein
• Lean Analytics, Croll & Yoskovitz
APPENDIX
