Participatory Indexing in the Eyes of Its Potential Users: An Example of a Co-design of Participatory Services in an Academic Digital Library

Abstract

Participatory indexing allows users of a digital library to add descriptors based on controlled vocabularies to digital content. Similar to participatory tagging, tested by several cultural websites such as digital museums or libraries, it could help users better understand the way librarians organize their collections, improve their searches and harmonize the keywords of all the library. In this paper, we present the experiments made by Fonte Gaia Bib (FG Bib), a French-Italian academic digital library, in the elaboration of a participatory indexing tool. To design such a tool, the project chose a participatory design by organizing two-days workshops with potential users. This method provided several ideas to implement a participatory tool that meets users’ needs. These workshops also provided preliminary data on the way users conceptualize participatory services in the context of a cultural heritage and academic project.