New interface improves access to digital collections

Digital Collections is the window into the Libraries’ digitized materials. Digitized materials are useless without a platform that makes them searchable and browsable. Given the ambitious pace of collection digitization—in the 2022–23 academic year alone, more than 14,800 images were added to the repository—developers focused on a redesign that enhanced researchers’ ease of discovery.

“If I had to pick one headline, it would be ‘Context,’” said David Schober, the Libraries’ senior project manager for repository and digital curation. “We created a lot of connections between individual works and the larger scope of the collection they’re from.”

For example, users opening the Berkeley Folk Music Festival Archive see an overview of the collection’s content (33,355 images, 1 video, and 29 audio files) featuring horizontal sliders—a design aesthetic familiar to customers of Netflix and other commercial streaming services—for browsing common subject themes. This presentation puts the collection’s information in logical groupings, helping users understand how items relate to each other, Schober said.

Each full collection is organized in tabs that offer an overview as well as optional expanded views. For researchers experienced in archival work, the setup mimics the physical experience of rifling through archival boxes and folders.