JSTOR Labs, an experimental platform development group, convened at Columbia University a group of scholars, librarians, and publishers in October 2016. Together, they tackled this design question: if we applied data visualization and design thinking techniques to the existing corpus of digitized monograph files, how could we improve the discovery and user experience for scholars, students, and general readers? In this presentation I share the approach we took to Reimagine the Monograph and demonstrate the working prototype created during a “flash build” at Columbia in November by JSTOR Labs. I also share four "product concepts" that we might build next, and poll the audience for feedback on these ideas. Results from audience polling are included in this slide deck.
2. 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.
5. WORKING
RAPIDLY
Can we improve the experience
and value of long-form
scholarship?
Aug-Sep: User Research
Oct: Workshop
Nov: Build Prototype
Dec: Release Paper/Prototype
11. WHITE PAPER
Describing the project, process,
prototype and the principles to
consider when reimagining the
monograph
Released as a draft for
comment
labs.jstor.org/monograph
12. “The reimagined monograph –
whatever that ultimately means – will
not be built in a single step, or by a
single organization.”
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.