Managing the Development of Digital Libraries, Aided by a Tool Based on 5S

An increase in collaboration between organizations building digital libraries has strengthened the need for tailored project management systems. Current project management tools do not handle the unique challenges that digital libraries pose from a management perspective. They require significant time to apply, and only provide partial solutions. To address this issue, we have designed, implemented, and deployed a Web-based management solution which caters to the planning needs of the project team during the initial phases of digital library development. The main aim of the tool is to capture digital library development patterns and to make development easy for collaborators. The key aspects of the tool are: i) use of the 5S framework of digital libraries to describe the managerial information system as well as the digital library being managed itself, ii) design that is centered on keeping the user informed about digital library practices by integrating appropriate user affordances into the tool, and iii) providing generic project management features such as timeline-creation and task-scheduling in addition to digital library customizations. A formative evaluation of the tool was performed using CTRnet and a national digital library as case studies.